Rehearsal Dinner and Practice Makes Perfect!!

The girls did great at the wedding rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner meeting all the new people. Here's the girls walking down the aisle in their special flower girl t-shirts made by Aunt Lynda.

Uncle Dave walks Kristin down the aisle preparing for the big day.

Rehearsal dinner photos at the Fish Market in downtown San Diego.

Sunny San Diego

We had a fabulous time in San Diego and it was made all the more special because we were able to stay with family while we were there. The girls had tons of fun at Sea World, the Zoo, and the beach, but they loved reading and playing games with Aunt Di and Aunt Lynda. One of the most important goals for me for the trip was having them meet my family and have memories of some of the people who love them from across the country. We definitely accomplished that!

I have quite a few photos and I'm going to break it down by days to make posting easier. Our first full day we went to Sea World and the girls seem to agree that it topped their list for fun adn excitement. Winky loved the Sesame Street area with the rides and Abbey Gaddaby, as well as the penguins. Gussie's favorites were the dolphins, Shamu, and the play area.

Even Grandma was willing to try out the rides a little. Once she figured out that she could control the height of the ride their Elmo went from flying up high to skimming the ground. Winky still loved it, no matter how high up they were. Gussie flew her own Elmo and she soared at the top with a big smile on her face. :-)

Shamu show and up close with a walrus.

Getting Closer

The girls will be flower girls in my cousin's wedding in exactly one week. Getting ready for the wedding has been fun (and a bit stressful as I start packing!!) and they are very excited to visit San Diego. The girls have been rather patient with me as we try out hair styles and see what might work with their hair. I've kept it shorter for most of their lives but they've been growning it out for the wedding. To curl or not to curl, to up-do or not, man...choices are tough. The reason we've always kept it short is because they both hate to have their hair done. They like the way it looks when it's finished, but the drama involved drives me crazy. I've been looking at some mom's hairstyles blogs and there are some highly dedicated moms out there that do some pretty intricate hair styles....daily. I can't imagine it. I'm sure my girls couldn't either. ;-)

Gussie was happy to try on her dress and walk around before we packed it up but Winky wasn't as willing. She pretty much cried and stomped around at the mere thought of being in the dress when she didn't want to, so we were grateful just to get a fitting done.

Move It! Dig It! Do It!

Wow, a lot of time has passed since I last posted so I have a lot of catching up to do. This past weekend we went to Move It! Dig It! Do It! which is an event sponsored by a local children's museum that brings in many different kinds of trucks and vehicles that the kids can climb in and on. There were construction cranes (only inside the cab of those!), recycler truck, trash truck, bus, fire truck, police car, combine, construction equipment, you name it, they probably had it. Two of the coolest things were going inside the balloon part of a hot air balloon that was tipped on its side and watching a helicopter land and go inside. They also had all kinds of animals and Winky's favorite...HUGE piles of sand with lots of sand toys to play in it. We spent most of our day there and here's a few photos.

Gussie doing the wheelbarrel race.

Winky drives the recycling truck. Just a little too short. :-)

Both girls had fun playing with the little cars. Gussie barely fit but they pretended to contact each other on the little radios and race around the track.

Watching Hannah Montana

The girls were excited to try out 3D glasses and watch the Hannah Montana concert that was shown on the Disney channel one night. I'm obviously getting old because I had a headache within 15 minutes from either wearing the glasses occasionally or watching the funky looking tv screen. Oh so sad, the days of youth are gone.

The girls started out watching the show sitting down but it didn't last long...

Soon they were singing and dancing along. Cute to watch.

Gussie thought Panya needed to get in on the act as well. If it's true that dogs are color blind, this didn't help much. :-)

Birthday Time Again

We were off to a birthday party for a family friend today and it held a whole day's worth of fun. I got some fun pics from the pool and water slides that I have to post.

Sharon (aka the birthday girl) coming down the slide.

Sharon under water. Glub, glub.

No clue what Paul was trying to do here, but it was amusing. The first slide he went down had a big drop and he tried to slow himself down as he went. Big mistake on a plastic waterslide and he has the friction burns to prove it. We could hear the squeeeeeaaaakkk of his hands and thankfully no four letter words from across the pool. :-)

The girls playing in the bubblers at the edge of the pool.

Gussie and her best friend love to ride horses together. That was in the plans for the morning but the stable they usually go to was badly affected by the recent flooding in Iowa and isn't yet open for business. They had to make due with petting some ponies that were at a local festival.

Playin at the Lake

I wish I had photos since it's rare Paul gets to come on an outing with us, but we had a great day out as a family (as I said, a rarity!!) at a local lake playing in the water. Gussie's swimming skills have improved so much with this last round of swimming lessons and she surprises me with her abilities each time we go in the water. Winky was finally willing to try the little arm floaties and could join us in the deeper water with a little dog paddle. We'll be BBQ'ing tonight and then a fabulous day will be had by all! If there wasn't rain in the forecast we would be letting the girls sleep outside in the tent tonight but I have no desire to get rained on, so we'll save that for another weekend. ;-) You can't expend all the fun in one day, can you??