Aqua Tot

June is turning out to be a great month, full of fun stuff! Two weekends ago we celebrated Brett's second Father's Day. We spent the weekend in Mendon and Portage visiting Brett's parents. We spent a lot of Saturday with Grandpa Lon and Grandma Di in Mendon, where Nora had a blast feeding the baby dolls bottles... pretty good for a kid who never really took a bottle herself! Saturday we also had a chance to visit and eat pizza with Brett's grandparents/ Nora's Great-Grandparents. Sunday we hung out with Grandma and Grandpa Longton and even got to play in the lake! When Chris and Brett took Nora out into the lake, she was a little nervous until everyone else got in the water too and showed her how much fun it was! We have tons of photos, thanks to the Longtons (we left our camera in the house). As a bonus, Nora's Uncle Casey came over and tried to convince us to let her take her first ride on the jet ski! Though that didn't happen, we had a great visit and Casey cooked up a feast. If you didn't know yet, Casey is one class shy of having his culinary degree (he'll be done August 9th, hooray!), and it shows! The dinner was excellent. Here are some pictures from the lake:

This rock 'n roll look was achieved with sunblock


Uncle Casey and Grandpa L show Nora the waverunner... she looks like she'll be a natural, as soon as she can see up over the front.

Nora and Grandma L

Last week Brett took a day trip to Chicago for work, so Nora and I had dinner at my mom and dad's. Andy came too -- a huge treat for Nora. She loves her uncles! As with Casey, she spent a lot of time trying to get his attention/ making silly faces. Next time I'll try to remember my camera so I can get some more pictures with our local family members.

This past weekend, we all travelled to Chicago for a visit with Genevieve and a friend's wedding. Everything was great, in spite of the fact that Nora does not sleep in the car... at A L L. Saturday we took Nora to the Lincoln Park Zoo, even though it was rainy early on. $4 for two rain ponchos solved the problem for Nora and Brett and we were on our way. It was great weather for the animals... they were all out and active since it wasn't oppressively hot. We saw lions, monkeys, gorillas (including a baby gorilla!), zebras, flamingos, penguins and assorted sea birds, warthogs, wild dogs, ostriches, giraffes and two storks! Nora seemed to like them all, and said "meow meow!" when we saw the lions. I was hoping the other animals would be making noise so we'd know how to represent them correctly when we read "Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?," but no luck. I really needed the zebra braying and the flamingo fluting, but all I got was some sort of buzzing noise from the flamingos. Oh well! To top off all of the awesomeness of the zoo, we ate lunch there, and were surprised to find that they had pretty decent food for a zoo!

One of the gorillas is to the left of Nora and Brett in this picture.

One of the puffins swam right up to the window to say hi! So did a penguin in the exhibit next to this one, but we couldn't get a picture to turn out.

Genny, Nora and Brett check out the zebras.

Getting in touch with her inner monkey.

Saturday night we headed off to Gretchen and Justin's wedding, which was just beautiful. We haven't been to a wedding in two years, so it was extra fun to go! I didn't take my camera, so we have no pictures. Nora stayed home with Genny for ladies night, and had a blast at the park. I'll have to get pictures from Gen, but apparently Nora's little dog accompanied her everywhere at the park. There she is on the swing, with the dog... on the slide, with the dog... running through a field, with the dog... helping to push the stroller, with the dog... ... you get the picture! Meanwhile, at the wedding, Brett and I got to meet Nora's future pen pal, Baby Eve Parker -- what a peanut! She's two weeks old and was a champion at the wedding, as were her parents. :)

Sunday we headed home after church, brunch and a short nap, and Nora definitely missed her aunt right away. We had a "scenic" drive right through the heart of the city due to a miscalculation/ foggy memory on my part and that distracted her some. It'd been a while since I drove right straight down Michigan Avenue so I should have enjoyed it more instead of being ticked that I missed getting onto Lake Shore Drive. If you're in Chicago, you CANNOT get onto LSD from North Avenue... just a friendly tip.

And finally to today -- Aqua Tot. Today was our first baby swim class. Nora LOVED it. As soon as we came out of the locker room and into the pool area, she was totally over the moon... and we hadn't even gotten into the water yet! She had a blast playing in the water and was only slightly put off when she accidentally plunged her face into the water while trying to pick a ring up off the bottom of the very, very shallow part of the pool. The only downside is she HATES the locker room. Hopefully over the next 2 weeks she'll come to realize that the locker room is just something to get through to get into and out of her adored pool.

As always, thanks for checking in with us. We hope you are well and would love to hear from you!