A trip to the Zoo

Last month (wow, time flies!) we met up with some friends who live in Baltimore while we were over visiting and took a day trip to the Baltimore Zoo. Emma had been 2 years ago when Will was T-one month to his birthday :)

Excited for the tram ride!

Smile! It was a cool morning but warmed up perfectly.

Our first stop was the "fairy dogs"

 Checking out the Polar Bear...

Everyone trying to get a look at the zebras.

Zebras, ostriches, and rinos.

Will, trying to climb up for a better look at the cheetah (some things haven't changed).

We found the giraffes!

Inside the monkey house. There was a baby, but it is really hard to spot.

And the chimps were outside since it was such a nice day.

Will started to get tired and took a break in the princess stroller. (This used to be Emma's stroller too!)

Emma and Phoebe, holding hands.

Pretending to ride the horses.

Brushing the goats...

And Will was thrilled to ride the tram (its a train! A train!) back to the front of the zoo.

Hugs goodbye...

Playgrounds

We have a nice variety of playgrounds in the area, and depending on what we have going on during the day, we go to different ones!

Here are a few pictures from our neighborhood playground. Emma loves going down "the big green slide" and she is so pleased with how brave she is because she used to think it was scary.



Will likes to climb up and down the stairs more than slide right now. He also loves to play with this spinning toy that has the planets on it. Martin told him the names of the planets once several months ago and he has never forgotten! He can name and correctly identify Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn! Not too shabby for a year and a half :-)



He also likes to reach his hand through the stairs and have me just up and give him "5".



Our favorite little playground is nice and quite and has a good set of swings.



Though not quite as much fun as this swanky swing in Townsend.



And Will is even more dangerous! He learned how to climb up this climber on his own. I don't trust him one bit, so I usually am standing right next to him the whole time (unless we need a photo).

Strawberries!

We've been strawberry picking almost every week and we will be so sad when the strawberry season is over. Recently we've been picking at Fairview Sod Farm in Townsend.




Strawberries have been $1.50 a pound which is fantastic, and we picked a ton of berries this past week especially.





The fields are a little harder to navigate than Filasky's because the rows are very wide and not well defined. But Will had no trouble roaming off by himself to snack!



Last week Will and Jordan sat by the strawberries and ate their weight!



Will was literally covered in strawberry juice...all down his front and all down his back (from sitting on strawberries and squashing them!)



The field is huge and Fairview is supposed to still be open for U-pick berries this week. (here is the article from the Delaware News Journal with Emma's picture from our time picking at Filasky's).




They also have chickens and sell brown eggs.




Emma and Will love getting to sit and watch the chickens while I pay for the strawberries!




This week we made strawberry freezer jam. Its a winner!

Easter Egg Hunt!

Today we had a giant Easter egg hunt with the MOMS club. The weather was fantastic and we had a great time. They divided the ages at 2, which was nice because Will didn't get trampled by any overzealous big kids :-)

His egg hunt was first, and Emma did a great job pointing eggs out to him.

She even encouraged him to "pick the big ones"! He loved it, especially when he realized they had candy inside. "candy, candy?" and he just wanted to open them!

Thankfully, most of Will's eggs had things other than candy, so I set him up with an egg full of Goldfish crackers and he watched Emma get her eggs.

She did a great job running with all the big kids after the countdown!

And she counted her eggs (each child got 12) to make sure that she had the right amount.

 Super fun, and we couldn't have asked for better weather!

We had a nice pizza lunch with our playgroup after the eggs were all gathered. Fun, fun morning!

Hoppin Good Time

A few weeks ago we had a fun morning out at Hoppin Good Time with our Moms Club. Its a bit of a hike from our house (south of Dover), but it was reasonably priced and so much fun. Its a large warehouse that is filled with huge inflatables. The best part was that since Emma and Will are still fairly little, I had to go with them and help them climb and slide on most things!

Will heading over a slide

This one was an awesome obstacle course.

Emma and Will siding together

Will was totally fearless going down the huge slide! He went by himself every time!

Climbing up the big slide...thankfully Emma could do this part by herself because I had to carry Will up the ladder. He thought it was hilarious, which basically made him dead weight!

Emma on a climbing wall

One last slide!

We can't wait to go back and take Daddy too!

Apple Picking

Last week we had a great trip south of Dover to Fifer Orchards.

Emma was super excited to pick apples!

Will enjoyed the sights from the backpack while Emma and I picked apples with our friends.

After picking apples we spent time in the Fall Festival area at Fifer. We went through a corn maze, enjoyed some huge slides (they put ArmourAll on the slides every morning...they were fast!), played in the hay, and did rubber duck races. They had several of these tanks set up. You used the pump to push water through the shoot and push the rubber duck along. They were awesome!

All the kids!

It was a great trip!