Memorial Day

Happy (late) Memorial Day!

I hope everyone had a holiday as nice as ours was. Despite having bought a grill this weekend, we opted to join some friends for an impromptu bar-b-que, and I'm glad we did. My friend and co-worker, Kelly, invited us over to her place for some traditional Memorial Day fun. The weather was just perfect...with the slight caveat that the air was smokey from the Canadian forrest fires (did you know Canada's on fire?) And here I was thinking, "man, there sure are a LOT of people grilling out today!"

After a quick 30 min nap, we woke Abby up and headed over to Kelly's place. We enjoyed the afternoon eating yummy food, meeting some new people, and enjoying everyone's company. There were even a few other kids there - which was nice for us and for Abs. Kelly was even prepared with a big blanket full of toys for the little ones.

Kelly also has a real camera - a big fancy Nikon with multiple lenses, and she was so kind as to let me play with it all day. I had never had the chance to play with a DSLR camera before, but I looooved it. By the end of the day, my (lovely) point and shoot felt more like a disposable camera. I had a lot of fun playing with the manual zoom and focus and snapping pictures of e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. :) So, I took 200ish pictures on Kelly's camera that I don't have to share right now - but here are a few of our day from mine

Abby was particularly fond of this ball-drop ramp toy

(as an aside - she wore that "dress" last year for the 4th of july - but it made a great shirt this year! Yay for getting 2 years of use out of an outfit!)

There was also a dog at the party - who was very well behaved and Abby was pretty happy to interact with her. Only confusion was that the dog's name was Addy. And so sentences like, "Abby, no" or "Addy, don't eat that" got the attention of two instead of one.

Addy's wondering where her frisbee went.

chillin'

if this doesn't say summer - I dunno what does. Welcome summer, welcome.

Abby was a big fan of the blackberries :)

Because it was a special day, we let Abby have a juice box. She hasn't had juice in a long long time since we decided to cut it out of her diet - and she's never had anything but watered down apple juice at that - so she was Pa-Reeety excited about this juice box.

me & my munchin

The other little girl at the party was 5, and she had a 19 month old brother. It was really neat to watch how Abby interacted with the older kids. She was so well behaved all day, it made me happy that she seemed to be having a good time.

After we'd eaten, some of the guys decided to start up a whiffle ball game. The rest of us headed down to the park as well and spent an hour playing and visiting while the others played their game. Kyle is such a trooper, he swung Abby for a loooong time. And when they were done? She just switched swings - and he swung her some more.

big kid swing - she didn't go very high, but she really enjoyed being in the big chair...and tell me she doesn't look downright southern in daddy's hat...

After the park, we packed up, headed home, and put Abby to bed. All the company, good food, and sunshine just wore us out. Kyle and I headed to bed shortly after. It was like I was worn out from happy. A big thanks to Kelly for having us over and for being such a gracious and hospitable host. We had a fantastic time.

Hope everyone was able to enjoy the day - and of course, took time to remember the reason for the day. We live in a great country!