Oh, Canada!

I took the kids to Canada for a week to visit my mom and step-dad, eh. We went to the zoo and saw a bunch of animals, the water park, and a safari park where we saw even more animals. The safari was pretty cool in that you drive through the park and the animals come right up to your car (and sometimes inside it) and you can feed them. The kids were a little nervous at first but after a couple of tries they got the hang of it. I think that was Alex and Ava's favorite part.

Looking for the turtle

So my mom has this Japanese garden in her yard complete with a tea house and koi pond. Someone had given her a turtle a while ago and it had been living a peaceful existence in my mom's pond until the arrival of Alex and Ava. Everyday Alex wanted to go outside and see the turtle and everyday he would ask if we could catch the turtle. We did catch it a couple of times so the kids could see it up close but after that I told them we needed to leave the turtle alone and to just watch him in the water.

Getting ready to throw some rocks

Another favorite activity of Alex and Ava's was throwing rocks into the pond. That didn't drive my mom crazy or anything.

Swimming!

For the past month Alex has been taking swimming lessons at the YMCA. It would be an understatement to say that he likes water. I think Alex would be perfectly content to live life as a fish if he could...except that fishes can swim and Alex, well...he's gettin' there. He can jump into the pool without any help (hey, the kids are only 4 &5, it can be a little intimidating) and he can also swim the length of the pool (and back) with the help of a noodle or floatie belt. I'm very proud of his accomplishments. He might grow fins after all...

Here's my little fish swimming with his noodle.

Okay, I had to put in a picture of Ava because I don't think I did in the last couple of posts. Here she is eating her lunch while Alex is in his swim lesson.