splish splash

playgroup last wednesday was at hermann park. all of the kids wore swimsuits and played in the fountains:

the girls, of course, had tons of fun:

lucy preferred splashing in the muddy puddles (lucky me):

happily, hazel was more excited to feed the ducks:

turns out they don't much care for ritz crackers. strike two, mommy.

today we planned on going to the discovery green downtown. so this morning we put the girls in their swimsuits and headed out:

oops.

we left anyway, thinking we might have a little time to play before the storm could catch up. wrong, again. this is what it looked like at the first major light (about 1/2 mile from our gate):

hmmmmm. at this point we decided to just drop grant off at school. it was slow going. houstonians treat rain like utahns should treat snow, i.e. they drive very slllllooooooooooooowww. just as we got on to the freeway, the car in front of us nearly caused a wreck by stopping. there was a big puddle in his way. anyway, we made it passed a couple exits and this sign:

"hurricane season is here...be prepared" oh, happy thought! this is where grant gave up and got off the freeway. we splashed our way back home (hopefully missing any pedestrians that happened to be on the sidewalk or at a bus stop):

and, go figure, by the time we got home it was barely sprinkling. so we let the girls brave hypothermia:

this is one of their favorite things to do. lucy especially can't get enough. she runs back here whenever we're outside to see if the puddle is there:

at first they were content with just running back and forth through it:

but soon enough, it was this:

and finally, this:

hazel is a stingray and lucy is a very rare water-loving cat. the best part of all of this splashing is (no, not the laundry) the tantrums that get thrown while trying to get back inside.

it's a good thing they're both so stinking cute.