dreamnight at the zoo

We always love attending Dreamnight at our local zoo.  It is a free night for families of children with special needs to enjoy the zoo, eat hotdogs and meet characters!  It is also a fun time to see lots of other families that we don't see very often.

First person we ran into was Andrew's old best friend Nicholas.  These two attended preschool together since they were 3.  They were each other's first best friend.  It was fun to reconnect and see them again!  Since we moved, the boys don't see each other much more than once or twice a year.

Andrew spotted this guy right away!  He can't wait for the new movie to come out this summer!

As you can see, Andrew was thrilled to stand by these characters... Kerigan?  Not so much.

Grace and Andrew- heart buddies!

As we were eating, there is always this man with these fun toys to entertain the kids!

Fun walking the zoo with other heart families!

Emily and Andrew rode the train together!

Sweet girl wanted to sit by her daddy

The giraffe's always fascinate me.  They come so close to the gate and they are just so huge and majestic!

Giraffe selfie!

I.Love.Her.  So much.

Just strolling through Africa...

And getting poked by rhinos!  Ha!

These are Andrew's favorite- by far.  They have only been at our zoo for a couple years and this was the first year we have seen them outside.

She insisted on waiting in a long line for a glitter tattoo.  That literally NEVER came off!  I thought these were just like a regular tattoo that would come off once you wash it but this one stuck for a good week and even then had to be scrubbed off!

She was super proud of it though!

This was so cool, the sea lions were coming right up to the glass!  The kids loved it!

Hippo water fountain... or hippo sprinkler?  It felt good to cool off!  Even though the temperature was just perfect.  We have had a really great summer temperature wise this year.

When the kids got their souvenirs, she decided to stand by the tiger.  A rare occasion.

We always close down the night playing on the playground.  We had a great time and are so thankful for this special evening!

crazy days of summer

And I cannot even put into words what an amazing feeling this is!  Ha!

These were the kids on their first official day of summer break.  Chillin under the trampoline in their boppers.  I'm not sure this was their intended purpose but they were relaxin'!

The kids made forts in the basement!

I purposely didn't schedule any activities for the first couple of weeks in June.  I knew we would all need a break from the busy life that has been the whole month of May and pretty much every month before that!   Plus it was nice to just have an open schedule and we have done quite a bit with our free time!

We went to the library to sign up for the summer reading program.  I didn't do this with them last year and regretted it.  This motivates them to read and they have already earned free zoo passes!

We met our friends out for lunch and ice cream!

Picked strawberries... strawberry fields forever...

Kerigan and I got hair cuts.  She needed a trim.

We went to our first summer heart group meeting with Emily and Grace and checked out the Jordan Creek pond and did some shopping first!  The kids enjoyed walking around the lake and seeing the ducks.

Our best babysitter Olivia has been so sweet and taking the kids to the park or their pool so I could work on a few things.  Kerigan just loves her!  She had to wear her sunglasses because Olivia had them on!

She lives across the street and is just the perfect person to have close by.  They have a pool in their backyard and the kids love it.

Having fun in the hot tub at Olivia's!

We went back to our old town one afternoon and visited some old friends!  Andrew got to play with his old best friend Payton while Mommy, Kerigan and Ga Ga got pedicures!  They had so much fun at the new Miracle League park.

And us girls had some fun too!

We are getting ready for a little trip to the beach coming up so we had to get our toes ready!

So proud of her nails!

After pedis and lunch we went to meet an old friend who turned 90 years old.  The kids call her "grandma Jean" and she is like my 2nd grandma.  We grew up with Jean and her husband at the lake (her husband and my dad were best friends).  We reminisced about the lake days and had ice cream to celebrate turning 90!

Andrew was so sweet and loved to push grandma Jean back to her room.  He said he promised to be gentle!  And he was!  Such a gentleman.

Of course the summer has consisted of lots of baseball and softball games so the kids have enjoyed visiting daddy at school!  Especially for golf cart rides!

We love meeting our friends at the ballpark!

And more golf cart rides!

Andrew finished up his baseball for the year, after being rained out most of the games!  It seemed to rain every day he had practice.  He called them "learning days" and he said he wished he could have had more.  So daddy told him he would take him out and give him some learning days this summer!  Ha!

The second week of summer Kerigan and her little friends signed up for dance camp!

The first day they had a princess day and they were all so thrilled and excited!  I love these girls and their mamas so much!

This was my favorite, Pinkalicious day!

She loves loves loves this book and we read it almost every night!  So this was a perfect day for her.  We had fun finding everything pink to wear!

After dance we took these girls out to lunch and some shopping at our new girly store that just opened in town!  We will be spending many more days here!

One afternoon another friend of mine came and brought her girls to visit!  Gwyn used to be my student teacher years ago and we have remained friends.  She actually grew up in the town we live in now so she is often here visiting!  Such a small world!

We celebrated Belle's birthday on June 20!  The kids were so excited, even though Belle had no clue it was her birthday- ha!

Another day Angie and I went out to lunch and took the kids to a place in town where you can pick out something to paint.  They loved it!

Andrew really wanted to do art camp but he was going to miss it because of our vacation so I told him we did this instead!

He was so proud of his little frog!

And she painted a unicorn.

One day we went to Andrew's and my school and helped water the garden!  We had to play at the playground too!

Andrew had been so excited to see this movie Inside Out so we went with some friends the other day and it was so cute!

Even though we've been pretty busy we've still had some time for lounging and napping!

Ha!  She crashed like this one afternoon.  This is what I just love about summer.  Just the freedom and knowing that we have no plans and can stay in our jammies all day if we want to!