Thanksgiving Part 2

It didn't take long for the girls to make themselves at home at my parents' house. We can take over a place pretty fast. The girls loved running around in circles through the kitchen, living room, and dining room. They loved spit shining the cabinets, dishwasher, windows, and floor. (The dishwasher even got an extra special apple finish one day. We charge extra for that.)

By Monday, we were ready for a little 'venture, so my parents and I packed up the girls and took them to get some apples at a farm stand my parents have been going to forever. The girls didn't have to try very hard to twist grandpa's arm into buying them some Twizzlers. So they ate apples and twizzlers in the car and since we were out that way, we went to a fish hatchery. Random? A little. But it was close and the girls love fish lately. Even better, there weren't many other people there and the girls got to run around outside a bit.

It was pretty much a self guided tour. They had big green fish painted on the ground to guide you around, and once the girls caught on to the fact that we were looking for and following the fish, they were off. Emma, in particular, was super excited about the fish. She's in the pink coat in the video, running ahead and yelling/growling "feeeeeeshhhhh!" and pointing to each and every one of them.

Julie had a little accident while we were at the hatchery. She was chasing the fish and started trying to run downhill... which she doesn't have much experience with. Anyhow, forehead hit pavement. Tears ensued. And a nice scratch. Luckily it didn't bleed too much, and she bounced back pretty quick, and continued to chase the fish.







We tried to keep our outings to one a day. We took advantage of the not-too-cold weather by going to a different playground on Tuesday. The playground has been there since I was a kid, but it looks like they completely redid the whole thing this year. It was nice because they had a separate, sectioned-off toddler area... which the girls were satisfied with for, oh, 10 minutes. And then they wanted on the big stuff. It just gets more complicated because we've got to do man-on-man defense. Lots of openings to step off of, steps that are too big, slides that are too steep, rope webs, etc. The girls had fun, though,

They all liked walking across this bridge. The photo is of Becca, but I think I heard Julie saying "mine" when she was on it.

They had this really neat xylophone that was easy enough for even the little kids to play.

This is Emma's version of swinging on the big kid swings.

Greg and I went out for a bit on Tuesday afternoon and did some shopping. We also ran by Toys R Us to get a few more things to keep the girls entertained. Greg's parents got in on Tuesday evening, and we all went out to dinner to Moe's.

The weather really turned colder on Wednesday, but we wanted to get out of the house, so we took the girls back to the playground. We didn't last very long, though. We had to fight to get the mittens on the girls, and their hands were still cold.






We also busted out the new crayons and blocks.

Emma's got a little crayon on her chin.



My brother Steven and his girlfriend Stephanie came over for dinner on Wednesday, too. The girls loved chasing them around and playing with blocks with them. The girls were also entertaining everyone by wearing other people's shoes.



Emma refused to get in a picture with Steve and Steph.