Field Trip to the Aquarium

Em's preschool class takes field trips every week now that they're in "summer camp," so I can't make it to all of them even though they're close by.  There's a fairly new aquarium at Concord Mills Mall (about 30 minutes from us), and that was this week's trip.  The class rides the bus, and I met them there that morning.  Em got to be the line leader!

This is her whole class lined up waiting to go in.

All of the kids loved the touch tank!

This little bubble was a big hit too.

It isn't a huge aquarium, but it was the perfect size for a field trip with 5 year olds, and they had a great time.

They loved looking for the sharks in the walk-through tunnel.

We were there for a couple of hours and the kids were all getting tired and hungry, so it was perfect timing to head back for lunch and nap time!  I wasn't as lucky and had to go back to work!

Ireland Trip

It's sometimes hard to believe that in five years, we have never had a babysitter or really spent any significant time away from Em.  We've done Parents' Night Out at her school a couple of times and she's stayed with her grandparents overnight when we're in the same town, but not like we did this month.

I found out a few months ago that I had to attend a 3-day global HR conference in Dublin with MetLife, and Mick and I decided he should come with me.  We'd take a few extra days of time and he could just play golf while I was in meetings.  My parents came to pick Em up on Sunday before we headed to the airport so she could stay with them for the week.  She had a few moments of nervousness or sadness leading up to the trip, but she jumped right in the car with them when they were ready to leave!

We got a few hugs and kisses before they left, but once they pulled out, she rolled her window down and yelled "good=bye forever!"  So we decided she wasn't nervous anymore.

Without retelling all of our travel woes, I'll summarize and just say we had terrible luck with our flights.  We were supposed to connect in Newark, but there were bad storms that significantly delayed our flights.  We were rebooked through Chicago the next day, and the same thing happened. We ended up rerouted through South Bend, IN and missed our connection to Dublin.  We finally caught another Dublin flight on Monday night after racing through the Chicago airport, but we had now lost both of our extra days once we arrived.

We tried to still make the most of our time, but by the time we got to the hotel, I had about 3 hours until I needed to be downstairs for our meeting kickoff.  The next couple of days were a whirlwind! One highlight was that we had a MetLife dinner at a castle outside of Dublin, where there was a bagpipe player to escort us in.  Very cool!

I got out of our last meetings a little early on Thursday, so Mick and I had some time to walk around downtown, buy some souvenirs and have dinner.  The weather was beautiful the whole time.

It would have been great to have our extra time there, but we tried to enjoy the little bit we had.

Of course our flights were perfectly on time on the way home on Friday, and my parents were at our house with Em when we got home.  It was such a huge help to us for them to make both trips, and it allowed us extra time to get unpacked and spend some time with our ladybug!

We had a very laid back weekend with lots of pool time and relaxing.

Doggie Love

For a dog who wasn't so sure about the tiny little baby we brought home from the hospital 5 years ago, Gracie has sure become a big fan of Emily.  Bella has always been crazy about her, but their closeness has grown as Em has gotten older, and they're so sweet I love seeing them together. 

I think since Gracie's surgery, Em has become even more protective of her (and has also told pretty much everyone we know about how the doctor had to shave the fur off of her leg to cut it open and put a piece of metal in because she tore her ligament).

Summer Fun

It's so much fun to be reminded that it doesn't take anything complicated to make Em happy.  We went to the Dollar Tree one Saturday morning and went through the aisles just adding stuff to our cart.  We spent $22 and had ingredients for a few science experiments, dish detergent to make a bucket of bubbles, a bug collecting kit, water guns and some other cool treasures.  Em had so much fun and we spent the rest of the day just playing in the backyard.

Gymnastics Show Week

Em's last night of gymnastics was Show Week, where the parents are invited into the gym to watch the kids demonstrate everything they've learned.  I took quite a bit of video of Em, but caught a few pictures too.  She has really loved gymnastics and has gotten pretty good at a lot of it, but we decided not to sign her up for anything in the fall, at least until she has time to adjust to her new schedule in kindergarten.

She was really proud at some of the flips she can do, and the bars seem to be her favorite place to practice.

She insisted on wearing this dress instead of more sensible gym clothes :).

This is her whole class with their trophies for graduating.

She might have been more excited about the trophy than anything else!  Once we've established our new school routine, we may sign her back up.  

Pre-K Graduation!

I know it's cliche to say how fast the time has flown by this year, but I can hardly believe we're just a short summer away from having a kindergartner!  Em's class had a graduation ceremony on Thursday night, and they'd done a lot of work to prepare for it.  They said "hello, how are you?" in multiple different languages, recited the pledge, and sang some cute songs together.  I know she'll make new friends, but I'll really miss the connections she's made with these kids over the past few years.

I really wanted to get a picture of Em with her teachers, and I love how this turned out.  Ms. Chandra and Ms. Christina have been terrific this year, and we never could have asked for better teachers--she really loves both of them.

Mick and I both came straight from work to make it in time.

 And there's Miss Sassy, after she got her diploma :).

5 Year Checkup

I took Em for her 5 year checkup Thursday morning before school, and once she confirmed there were no shots, she was in a great mood for the appointment.  While we waited for the doctor, she struck a few poses for me in her gown.

She is such a clown!  She's 46.5 inches tall (96th percentile) and weighs 46.4 lbs (81st percentile). Last year at this time, she was 43.25 inches tall and 41 lbs.  I knew she was tall, but the 3+ inch growth certainly explains why we have trouble keeping up with her in clothes.

Her hearing seems perfect, but the doctor did ask us to follow up with an optometrist because Em seemed to see a little better out of one eye than the other.  I'm not sure Em wasn't just being silly during the eye test, but we'll see.

Memorial Day Weekend Trip to SSI

We decided to take a couple of extra days off for Memorial Day weekend and head down to St. Simons Island, GA to be with Mick's family.  We rented a condo at the beach with Rob and Stacy, but went by Mick's parents' house when we first got there so we could see them before we checked in.  Em was happy to see Grandma, Papa and Muffin.  She is such an animal lover, so perhaps she really will grow up to be a veterinarian like she plans!

Once we got to the condo, we spent most of the rest of the weekend there, with the exception of going out for a few meals.  Em stayed with Mick's parents each night, and they came over to join us during the days.  We were oceanfront with a great pool, and the weather really couldn't have been more perfect.  Em had a great time playing with her Uncle Rob!

She would have spent the entire day on the beach building sandcastles if she could have!

Luckily, when we left the beach, she was happy to spend time at the pool, so we did a lot of relaxing.

Even Uncle Chris came by one afternoon to see everybody.

This sweet girl loves her Papa!

And her cousin Landon, although he wanted nothing to do with a picture.

It was a great long weekend with plenty of fun and sun. 

Sweet Gifts

These are a couple of sweet gifts Em has made lately--this is the Mother's Day gift they made at school.  I just love it!

The week after Mother's Day was Teacher Appreciation Week at her school, and we sent in small gifts each day with little notes attached.  We ended the week with some nice gift cards and notes from Em--her teachers really are terrific, and we feel lucky to have had Em in their class.  She really does love Ms. Chandra and Ms. Christina!

Gracie

Four years ago, our first baby (Gracie) tore a ligament in her left leg and we had it surgically repaired.  The doctor said at the time that there's a good chance she would do the same thing to her other leg, so we've sort of been waiting, but felt like we were close to being in the clear.  Almost four years to the day of the first surgery, Gracie was running in the backyard Monday night and suddenly sat down.  She didn't want to move, and when she did, she wouldn't put her back right leg on the ground. We were worried she had done the same thing, so I planned to call her vet first thing Tuesday morning to see when I could take her in.  Luckily, the same surgeon is still there and they told me if I could bring her in early, they'd work her in to see Dr. Dozier that day.

A little later, he called me and said "well, if you thought Gracie tore her ligament in her right leg, you were right."  He was surprised she made it four years after the other surgery without it happening, but said he could do the surgery the next day if we wanted.

This is a picture from 2011, after Gracie's first surgery.

And this was after surgery when we brought her home on Wednesday.  Em was extremely concerned about her and wanted to stay right by her side.  She was on so much medication it was hard for her to do much moving, but I think she was just really glad to be home.  She didn't want to eat, so I made her some chicken and rice (which of course she didn't turn down).

By the end of this week, she was already touching the leg down a little when she walked, and was back to eating her normal diet.  She's healing nicely and now just has to deal with the cone of shame!

Lantern Fest

I read about this fundraiser called Lantern Fest that was coming to Gastonia, and decided to buy tickets for us because it was raising money for the American Cancer Society, and because it looked like a lot of fun.  The price you pay includes a biodegradable paper lantern, markers and crayons to decorate it, and ingredients to make s'mores.

If you've seen Disney's Tangled, you know all about the floating lanterns that Rapunzel sees every year on her birthday--we of course saw the lights near the Rapunzel tower at Disney World, but I knew Em would love the opportunity to set off her own floating lantern.

We got there in plenty of time and took our blanket and chairs down to the field--it was in the middle of a speedway, and they had hundreds of fire pits and tiki torches set up.  They sold food and drinks, and we got to work decorating our two lanterns.

Rapunzel and Flynn made a guest appearance!

Em was super proud of our lanterns that we decorated with pictures, our names and the date.

When it got dark, the lanterns started going up!

They say they have a crew of "lantern chasers" that gather about 90% of the lanterns after they fall that night--the other small percentage just biodegrade or are picked up later.

There were thousands of people and hard to even estimate how many lanterns in all.

Toward the end of the night, a couple of lanterns got caught on the cell phone tower you see in the back here, and started a pretty big fire.  As we were leaving, the fire department was there to put it out, and the story made headlines everywhere.  It was really a super cool event, and beautiful to see all of those lanterns.  Em loved it!