Memorial Day Weekend

Simone spent last week up in Pennsylvania at Grammy's house visiting her cousins. That meant a roadtrip for mommy and daddy to pick her up over the holiday weekend. We packed in lots of fun and had a great weekend except for the traffic going north on Friday night -- awful. We were, however, rewarded on the return trip with smooth sailing.


With summertime weather in full swing we sought out some low key, shaded activites. So we headed to Jim Thorpe for brunch and a train ride. Simone's cousin Seleste came with us. Best pals!

You can really see here just how tall Simone has gotten. At Christmas, Simone and Seleste were nearly the same height and now Simone is a good 3 inches taller.

We were on an open air car, so we got some great shots of the scenery. I only my phone camera with me though, so they're not perfect.

With full bellies and warm temps, both girls fell asleep on the ride back. Simone went down first.

Simone was also lucky enough to be there for her cousins' Peyton and Ella's birthday party -- their birthdays are 3 days apart and they turned 6 and 8 this year. The party cupcakes were a hit!

We had to act fast to get this shot. The whole pack stayed seated for only minutes and spent most of the time running and playing like there was no tomorrow.

Finally, before going home we spent Monday with Peyton and Ella in Philadelphia at the Please Touch Museum-- always tons of fun. The girls were sure to see every inch of the place and especially loved shooting rockets in the astronaut room.

Simone sure had an awesome week and is readjusting to her routine again with only mommy and daddy around. She loved the excitement and playing with all the girls so much, and is already eager to do it again!

Guppy Gala

Yesterday we spent the evening at the zoo for the annual Guppy Gala. The weather was grey, but mild and luckily the rain held off. It was quite similar to Boo at the Zoo without costumes, but in our opinion, even better because of more activities and smaller crowd.


The zoo provided its guests with Subway for dinner. And then we hit the array of candy, ice cream, and snack stations.

And Simone's favorite part was the inflatable playground. We spent quite a while on these.

With a little help from staff, she even scaled the climbing wall to come down the slide.

Here she is a little uncertain of the guys on stilts.

Around the lion exhibit, they had games and activities which held Simone's attention more than the actual lions. After she played the ring toss, pin the spots on the cheetah, and the fishing pond, she picked blue and orange dots for her hair at that silly station. I was thrilled... not.

Mom and Dad, on the other hand, enjoyed the lion pride more. It was getting dark by this time, so the video quality isn't very good, sorry.

Overall a really nice time that we all enjoyed. We'll be back next year for sure.

Here Comes Peter Cottontail...

Happy Easter! We squeezed in a terrific Easter weekend before mommy left on her work trip on Sunday. It's hard for us to pick a favorite part, but the flashlight Egg Hunt no doubt got Simone's vote. Here's a peek at our basket of Easter food that we brought to be blessed on Saturday morning.

Tony and Simone decorated all of the real eggs.

And then packed up the plastic eggs to bring to the flashlight egg hunt.

Simone was thrilled to hold the flashlight and run around collecting the eggs, which she found all by herself.

Posing at church before Easter Mass.

And then off to the restaurant for brunch.

Picking the dandelions has become one of Simone's favorite pastimes.

Two of the things that make Patowmack Farm so special for Easter is the airy outside feel with wonderful view, and the creative courses for every occasion. This was a baby carrot "planted" in a cocoa granola dirt. How cute! And in the background is the view from our table.

A practically perfect Easter weekend! Until next year...

Week of the Child

Simone has had a very exciting week. Her preschool celebrated the Week of the Child by doing something special each day. Monday was Pajama day and Tuesday was Color day -- Simone's class dressed in yellow. We didn't remember to take pictures, however, until Wednesday which was ...Picture day. So here she is all dressed up for school pictures. Thursday was Character Day. Simone was, of course, Pinkalicious--her favorite character of all. She was a little upset that we couldn't find pink fairy wings, but we explained that Pinkalicious doesn't always wear her wings. I thought she turned out a pretty close approximation considering we accomplished it in one evening!

And we ended the week with Freaky Friday (which Simone affectionately called Freaky Fracky Day). She picked out lots of stripes and mismatched shoes. But the craziest part was her hair, which we brushed out to about twice the size of her head. She thought it was hillarious and kept touching it, calling it "airy". LOL!