Little Rock Zoo

Riding the carousel at the zoo!
Memorize that sweet little Royals hat on our boy,
because tragedy is going to strike in about 15 minutes.

Tragedy!!!

Peering over the edge to get a closer glimpse of the chimpanzee habitat,
Jax accidentally let go of his favorite hat and we all watched it fall in slow motion
to the ground, just as the chimps were let outside for the day. It was a sad
moment for Jax (and Mommy).

Nothing cools you down (and cheers you up) better than a snow cone
and homemade lemonade!

Jax and Daddy riding the train.

Kota and Mommy ready to ride the train.

Little Rock - Mini Golf

Jason has been in Little Rock, AR since late June and we are excited to reunite with him in two weeks. As mentioned in the previous post, I had signed the kids up for several activities this summer, but I planned all the classes/camps/lessons around July 4th. I knew that we wanted to travel down to Little Rock to spend some time with Jason, and being there during a holiday would mean time off work for Jason. We were lucky enough that he only worked about 2 1/2 days the entire 10 days we were there! The first day he had off, we decided to find a place to play mini golf.

Dakota getting her first golfing lesson from Daddy.

The kid is a natural.

After golf, we all ordered snow cones to cool off. Can you guess their flavor?

Swimming Lessons

It's only the middle of summer and I'm finally getting some updates on here. Jason is in Little Rock this summer, upgrading from co-pilot to Aircraft Commander. We had originally planned to move down there with him for the summer, but the base no longer has furnished housing, so the kids and I stayed back in Illinois. We did go visit him for a week and a half (those pictures coming next). Knowing it would just be me and the kids this summer, I decided to find some fun things for them to do. Dakota took a six week dance class, Jax is playing baseball and taking golf lessons, and both kids took swimming lessons through the park district. My goal to keep the kids distracted busy while Daddy is away has worked well (although they miss their daddy with every breath they take) as they have had a lot to look forward to every week and aren't tired of playing with each other (like I feared they would have been if I hadn't found a few activities to get us out of the house). My personal goal this summer is to de-clutter the house a bit. I thought this would be easy and pictured myself carrying out boxes and boxes full of junk gently used treasures to donate to a local thrift shop. I have finished with the upstairs, but only one full box and a few random items have made their way out of the house. This week I will begin the dreaded basement. I originally assigned myself one room per day, but I think the basement will call for double that. I'll keep you posted (not that the de-cluttering of my home is entertainment or anything).

Here are a few pictures from the kids swim lessons in June. They had a blast and begged to take more lessons. Unfortunately the lesson times don't line up with our schedule, but I promised to look into some indoor lessons in the fall.

Dakota was only a day or two out from getting tubes put in her ears, so
she has ear plugs in this pink band to keep water from getting in.