Fun with the Grandparents

Over the last few weeks, the girls and I have been spending some time with their grandparents. It's been a lot of fun for all of us.
First, we got to go to a picnic at John Deere, where my dad works, to celebrate its 175th anniversary.  It was quite a big to do. There was ice cream, crafts, bouncy toys, face painting, or knee painting in Lily's case...

...and of course lots of tractors and mowers to play on. Ela has read a book about "Allie Gator" about a millions times, so she was especially excited about meeting Allie.  But she was happy to climb on anything that might move.  I'm so proud that I have a girl who likes tractors (and trains). 

The surprise high point of the picnic, though, turned out to be a bouncy slide. This thing was super tall, and looked scary to me, but Ela really wanted to try it (having been scared out of the regular bouncy toys by the fact that she could barely stay standing in them).  Convinced that I would have to retrieve her, I decided to let her go and watched as she climbed the ladder to the top of the slide.  When she got up, she was hanging out as far from the edge of the slide as possible.  I braced myself for my own trip to the top, then called to her to come down the slide.  To my great surprise, she threw on a big grin, and dove down...

Several trips later, she was still making the face of terror and giggling like a maniac. So I guess I have a future roller coaster rider on my hands.
A few days after the picnic, we headed up to Winston Salem for a visit with Zack's folks.  It was warm and a very short visit, so we kept it low key.  Ela's favorite part was a trip to the pool.  We tried to convince her to go to the indoor one, but she really wanted to come to the neighborhood outdoor one, so we slathered on the sunscreen and off we went.

Lily hasn't really been in many pools, so while Ela ranged all over, gradutally getting braver, we worked on getting Lily wet without upsetting her.

I'd say we had some success. By next year, she'll be chasing her sister around.

It's really nice being in North Carolina full time.  We love that visiting family isn't such a big production just now.  We intend to make the most of it while we can!