Beginning of June

A few miscellaneous pictures from the last few weeks.

 

Love this girl!  Mia can be so sweet and so goofy.  The picture on the right is her making her ghost face; she cracks us up with this one.

 The day after the girls returned from Birmingham, we went to see Epic in the theatre.  Both girls are quite excited that Monsters University is coming out soon!

 I love seeing them play nicely together; in this picture, they are just coloring, but I think it's sweet.

 Walking in the park.

 Reading a little Shel Silverstein one morning.  Lily loves Where the Sidewalk Ends.

 Taking Daddy to the Braves game on Fathers Day weekend.  The Braves beat the Giants in the bottom of the 9th!

 Go Braves!

 The girls always love to have their faces painted at Turner Field.

 Posing on the huge Coke chairs.

 Mia loves to run the bases in the outfield.

The girls enjoyed their time in Birmingham.  They went to VBS at Shades Mountain which they loved.  They had lots of fun with Bama, Josh, Amy, Kendall, John, Austin and all their dogs.  They always come back worn out from this week!

 

Ryan and I flew down to Lakeland last Sunday.  Lois Harrison passed away, and her funeral was held Monday afternoon.  She and Great-Grandpa Hooks had been married for 31 years.  It was nice to be with lots of Ryan's family for a few days.  Lois was a lovely lady who will be missed by many.

White Water Fun

We were in need of a Hooks Family Fun day.  Three weeks ago, Ryan was in Alaska.  Two weeks ago, the girls were in Birmingham.  Earlier this week, Ryan and I were in Florida for Lois' funeral.  We both had church meetings Wednesday night.  We missed just being together.  So, Ryan and I decided to put everything else aside and enjoy a family fun day on Friday.  We headed to White Water for the first time this season.  We had a blast! 

 

We put our things down and immediately headed over the Bahama Bobsled family ride.  Last year, Mia hated this ride; it terrified her.  However, she said she wanted to try it again this year.  We encouraged her superhero courage to come out, so she excitedly tried it.  She and Lily squealed the whole way down, but when we finished she exclaimed "That was awesome!  Let's do it again!"  So, we did.  We immediately went back in the line and did it a second time.  I'm so glad she loved it this time!

 

After that we decided to head over to the kids' area.  The girls put on their goggles and were ready to play.  They love all the different slides and play areas.

 They loved making splashes!

 Love being with these sweethearts.

 We were having a great time!

 Standing under the waterfall.

 Coming down a slide together.

The slides on the pirate ship go really fast even though they are short.

Enjoying a float down the lazy river.

 Behind the waterfall with Daddy.

 Sweet sisters.

 Ready to go in the wave pool.

 Just having fun.

 One last ride down a slide before heading out for the day.

We rested up for a little bit when we got home, and then continued our family fun day.  We ordered pizza, popped some popcorn and watched Despicable Me.  This was a great day together!

A Morning at the Zoo

I wanted to get out and enjoy this beautiful morning, so the girls and I headed to the zoo.  Since we have annual passes, we were able to just take it easy and meander around which was nice.  We started out at the flamingos where both girls loudly noted they are stinky animals.

 We decided to start at the playground and go the opposite route as normal.  Good call on our part as there were only a couple of other kids there.  Normally the playground is near the end of the loop so it gets more crowded as the day moves along.

 Both girls wanted to try their luck at jumping 6 feet like a kangaroo.

 My monkeys love to climb.  They affectionately named themselves Swinger (Lily) and Monk (Mia).

 They couldn't wait to ride the train.

 Studying the map.  Lily enjoyed being our guide.

 Next up was the carousel.  We all three rode on panda bears.

 Mia was very excited about the petting zoo.  She loves to brush the animals.  Lily waited by the fence for us because she didn't want to pet them today.

 My sweet kangaroos.

 My favorite animal to see there is the giant panda.  Po was in the next enclosure sleeping in the tree, but Xi Lan was happily munching away on some bamboo.

 After a lunch break, the girls asked to head back to the playground area instead of seeing the other half of the zoo.  Why not? We stopped by to see the giant tortoises on the way.  According to the zookeeper, Al is close to 600 pounds and is almost 125 years old.  His friend, Tex, is 90 years old.  Wow.

 We also stopped at the climbing wall.  I was very proud of Lily for finding her courage to give it a try.  She's always been too nervous before, but she tried it this time. 

Mia couldn't wait.  She climbed to the top and rang the bell.  Twice.  As a family walked behind me, I heard the dad exclaim "Holy moly!  Is that girl part spider?!" as she quickly and confidently scampered up the wall.

 We played on the playground again for a few minutes but I could see the girls were wearing down quickly, so we came on home.  This was a fun morning with my girls!

Random Fun

The girls had fun helping Liz wash her car!

 Yesterday morning, Lily came across the plastic eggs we used around Easter.  She put little treasurers inside several of them and hid them in various rooms.  Then she made this treasure map and sent Mia and me on a hunt for them.  This was a fun way to start the day.

 Granny sent some of her old costume jewelry to the girls last year.  They played with it some, and then I put it up.  I brought it back out, and they had a lot of fun playing dress up with it.

 The girls with some of their paintings.  Mia has a good time with it while Lily takes her time and concentrates.  This is her painting of a Tangled scene where Rapunzel and Flynn are rowing in a boat watching all the lanterns float into the air above the castle.  I love coming home from work and seeing the artwork they've created during the day!

 I let the girls have a sleepover in Mia's room last night.  They were so excited!  They laid down about 8, and I could still hear them giggling and having fun about 8:45.  By 9:15, Lily was out, but Mia was too excited to sleep; she asked me to give her "sleep lotion" (Johnson & Johnson's calming sleepy time lotion that smells so good).  I think she finally drifted off about 9:30 or so.  I love times like this when I can see their friendship developing.  I love these two!