birthdays & parties

july 1, lucy turned 4. she'd been looking forward to it for ages and i don't think she was displeased:

as she slept, i covered her in pink balloons and waited for her bubbly excitement to overflow:

she didn't disappoint:

the 1st was a sunday and grant had early morning meetings to attend, making him unable to be around for presents. i let lucy open one (a new dress) before church:

and kept the rest back for after, when grant could watch: 

lucy was super excited to receive her very own scooter:

hazel gave her spiderman action figures:

it was hazel's lucky day too:

she received her own present from aunt jewel, along with lucy's. (thanks, jewel! they love them)

oliver thouroughly enjoyed the carnage:

lucy, after she finished opening everything, wanted to test drive her scooter:

don't let the picture deceive you, she really did have fun. as ever, grant and i are safety conscious. lucy was delighted with her spider-man helmet, knee and elbow pads, and finger-less gloves. in fact, she loved the gloves so much, she rarely took them off the first week:

lucy wanted pizza for dinner and i obliged. she also wanted a pink spider-man cake, but i talked her into cookies-n-cream cupcakes with pink frosting and she was happy to switch:

ok. maybe she was mostly excited to have a #4 candle on her cupcake, but they were also super delicious. i even fancied them up by swirling three colors of icing (pink, light pink, and white) using this tutorial. it turned out fine, but i think my frosting wasn't thick enough:

and finally, no birthday is complete without ice cream:

we took it pretty easy for the 4th of july. the library was closed so grant had to stay home with us. we went back to the spider web park:

it was hot:

really, really hot:

but that didn't stop us from getting a nice run in:

the girls rode their contraptions back and forth along the pathway:

lucy was nice enough to share:

we had lots of fun:

but eventually the threat of heat strokes sent us home.

last weekend, grant went to las vegas to visit his sister, so the girls and i had ourselves a party weekend. we went to the movie brave. lucy thought it was too loud:

but otherwise, we all enjoyed it tremendously.

we posed a bit outside the theater:

before heading home to paint:

sunday after church, we picked grant up from the airport and all was well.

excellent adventures: day 2

we woke up relatively early the next morning, found an ihop to eat at for breakfast, and made it to the park by late morning:

this time the girls were ready for the water park portion of sea world:

logistics proved tricky, especially when you toss in this enormous play area and monkeys for children:

see what i mean?:

there was only one staircase on one part of the monstrosity for the parents to use while trying to keep their kids in sight. but there were all of these tubes to climb through, leading to other further-away areas. more difficult for parents to keep track of the wee ones, but not if you're grant. he's in the tube by the blue tents, trying to catch the girls:

after we were all together again:

we headed down to a semi-shaded playground:

hazel took over picture taking and spent ten minutes chasing lucy around trying to get a photo of her:

eventually hazel gave up and took a series of feet pictures:

and then we lost lucy. she took off as soon as we said it was time to head somewhere else and we couldn't see where she went. grant ran one way and i went the other with hazel. it was a scary 5 minutes. grant found her and she actually seemed a bit scared. lesson learned, i hope. 

we next headed to a show we hadn't seen the day before. it had divers, synchronized swimmers, an acrobat, a beluga whale, dolphins, and parrots:

hazel talked us into going to the sea lion show again and while we were watching, it started raining:

half of the audience left but the actors completed the show. we waited out the rain under a pavilion while the girls played in the puddles:

once the rain stopped, we walked across the park to visit the shark aquarium:

and were just in time to see scuba diver feed the rays:

outside again, grant and i made good on our promise to feed the dolphins again:

lucy says she was afraid the dolphins would bite her fingers, so she didn't try very hard to touch (though she did eventually, i think):

hazel was braver:

and managed a small touch:

once we'd used up all our fish, we had to move out of the feeding area (which usually means no more chances for petting the dolphins) but luck was on our side and we got a freebie: 

we grabbed some late lunch to kibosh the tantrums that had begun:

and caught one last show:

 where we didn't get splashed. again. on our way out, grant spotted his favorite animal:

a predatory bird!

the end