All American Girl

A lot has happened since our last post, and I do apologize for the delay in updating, but sometimes we are so busy living life with Emily, we run out of time to write about life with Emily. As I said, we have a lot to talk about so once again we will break this up into a couple of different posts. I am going to start with the Saturday before the 4th and go all the way to the 4th in this one, then later this week, we will talk about last weekend. This post would have been up yesterday, but the weather conspired against us.

So, here we go! Saturday started once again with swimming lessons for Emily & me, only this time Auntie Mandy & Grandma Kathy showed up to watch. They picked a pretty good week because our regular teacher was back and Emily started the lesson really kicking her legs and having a lot of fun until something horrible happened. The teacher suggested that we try to get their faces in the water, something I'll admit that I was reluctant to do. Well, I watched some of the other parents dunk their kids and nothing really bad happened so I said to myself, "self, let's do it!" I would like to say at this point that nothing happened to Emily, let's just say she wasn't happy, you might even say that she was really mad. She didn't cry, but she wasn't laughing either. I figured at this point that if I was already in trouble, I might as well do it a few more times, at no point did Emily change her attitude about this new experience.

After the swimming lesson was finished, I really needed to get back into Emily's good graces, so we went to the zoo!! It was their "Beanie Baby (tm)" weekend and the first 4,000 children under 12 received a free Beanie Baby (tm). Thankfully, we were there in time to get Emily a Beanie Baby (tm) and it appears that all was forgiven. We spent a little extra time at the zoo and checked out a few of the animals we tend to ignore on our way to the bears. We stopped at the big cats and listened to the zoo chat about the lion, who will be getting a girlfriend soon. We were also able to touch some of the hair from his mane, very wiry, one of his teeth that broke off, and the sheath from one of his claws. After seeing all of this I decided that I would not like to be attacked by a lion, something I was pretty sure about before, but this sealed the deal. From here we checked out the seals & sea lions, which were having fun swimming around, but as we did not go into the underwater viewing area there wasn't much to see. From here we went to see what the bears were up to. They had just finished the zoo chat with the Alaskan Brown Bear and we watched him for a minute, then went to wait for Hudson & Arki to come out. The keepers had put out some special treats for them, and it was really fun watching Hudson chase a piece of ice around. He & his mother had fun playing with the treats and swimming in their pool.

On Tuesday, Emily spent the morning with her mommy putting out some letterboxes for some folks who were coming into town. Then they came to meet me at work to go to lunch, followed by some shopping until I came home. Then Emily went to Grandma Kathy's so that Mommy & Daddy could go to dinner and a movie for our eighth anniversary. We had a great time and Emily enjoyed her time with her Grandma & Auntie Mandy.

Wednesday was the 4th of July and Emily wore her red onesie with white polka dots and denim shorts, so she was red, white and blue. We spent the morning at home and then went to Grandma and Grandpa B's for dinner. Emily helped do some of the prep work for dinner and entertained us all. We went home before the fireworks because Emily was just plain worn out.

I am going to end it here, and leave you wanting more. I will post soon with the exciting details of our weekend. I will hint that we left the state, but will say no more!!

Emily had some special visitors at her swimming lesson on June 30; Grandma Kathy & Auntie Mandy came to observe the action.

The swimming lesson began like most of the others . . . splashing Daddy.

Emily made friends with one of the little boys in her class, another 6 month old named Easton.

Things suddenly took a turn for the worse, from Emily's perspective that is. Daddy got a little overzealous after watching a couple of the other parents dunk their babies under the water. Get ready, here it comes! Now you see them . . .

. . . Now you don't!

Emily has had happier moments than she did right after this one. She didn't cry, but she was very obviously upset with her Daddy. Let's just say that if she had a list, he was #1. Her whole attitude changed for the rest of their lesson.

Daddy tries to make peace with her friend from a previous class, Rubber Ducky. It didn't really work. She was happy while she had Rubber Ducky, but as soon as Daddy moved him away so that she could swim towards him, she gave her Daddy a look like "You put him over there, Daddy, you go get him!"

After swimming lessons, Emily donned her "I Love Polar Brrrrs" T-Shirt and we headed off to the zoo. It was Beanie Baby day and Emily let Daddy know that if he wanted to make amends, he needed to take her to the zoo. Here she is with her newly acquired Beanie Baby, Daddy was forgiven.

The Snow Leopard was actually near the front of his exhibit, and awake!

The Sloth Bears were also awake and moving around. Usually, they really live up to their name.

The Lion had been awake. We heard him roaring and he was moving around when we got there, but by the time we got our camera out and got a spot near the fence, he had found a comfy spot and was settling in for a nap.

This Seal was basking in the sunlight while the others swam in their pool.

I captured this great shot of Emily sitting in her stroller while we took a moment to rest on a bench.

This picture shows the size of the different bear species that they have at the zoo. The largest is the Brown Bear, next the Polar Bear, then the Spectacled Bear, and finally the Sloth Bear. All of these bears are larger than Emily.

Since she had forgiven him for "the dunking incident" Emily happily posed for a picture with Daddy. But she kept a close eye on him, just in case.

Jimmy, the zoo's Brown Bear, was also rather energetic. Here he is playing with a stick.

Emily was sitting on the railing, waiting with baited breath for Hudson to make an appearance. After all, she was wearing her Polar Bear shirt.

Finally, he appeared!! He now weighs in at over 100 pounds, very impressive considering that when he was born he was about the size of a stick of butter. He was born the same day as Emily, and she is only 16.1 pounds now and was considerably larger than a stick of butter at birth.

Hudson found one of the fruitsicles that the keepers had put out just before the bears entered their grotto. He had to grab it and make a wild dash to keep it away from Arki.

On July 4th, we headed over to see Grandma B, Grandpa Ray & Aunt Susie. Emily was helping Aunt Susie husk the corn for our dinner while Grandpa Ray prepared the chicken and hot dogs.

Emily was having a lot of fun playing outside and helping Grandpa Ray make dinner.

They spent a little time making faces at each other, too.

She also spent some time inside, rolling around on the floor and playing with her toys.

Daddy had some fun playing with his favorite toy, Emily.

Emily made it be known that she didn't want her picture taken anymore. She learned this maneuver from Brad Pitt.

Where's Emily?

There she is!