The final part of our super-busy Thursday was a trip to the Redlands Market Night. The studio where Emma takes gymnastics was doing a demo booth there and they invited all the gymnasts to come out and show off their skills. So Emma, Mikayla, TJ, and I headed out there to meet Karen after she got off work. Jen, Charlene, & Hayden came too. The kids had a great time tumbling and summersaulting and bouncing off the springboard. Then we grabbed some dinner from the street vendors and had an impromptu picnic in the grass as we listened to the musicians. It was a fun evening.
One of my friends, Sarah, is going to be moving across the country very shortly so that she, her husband, and children, can be closer to all their family. We have known her for a few years and, in fact, Sarah and I used to work together before we had our daughters. Anyway, we wanted to have at least one last playdate at the park with the kiddies. So Sarah, Jen, Heather, and I met up on Thursday afternoon (after the zoo and before market night - it was a busy day!) at the park for a couple hours. It was nice to get a chance to visit and the kids enjoyed playing together.
I took Emma out to Palm Desert on Thursday morning to visit the Living Desert Zoo. We had never been here before and it was (duh!) really hot! Imagine that... the desert in summertime was hot. Surprise, surprise. But we had free pass from last year's library event and they were going to expire at the end of June, so we packed up some water and sunscreen and headed out for a Mommy-Daughter day. Hot or not, we still had a good time. We saw giraffes, zebras, some mountain lions and a cheetah. We also spent a good amount of time in the petting kraal and the aviary... yay for shaded areas! Emma commented on one of the birds, telling me "Look at that egret bird's neck Mama... It's shaped like an "S." My friend Sophia should come here to see it." She is such a smartie pants. It was a lot of fun and I think we will probably be back again, but in the winter time! In fact, Emma kept telling me that she loved the giraffes and zebras but, when I asked her what her very favorite part of the day was, guess her answer??? Yep, the 88 cent slushie we stopped for at Circle K after leaving the zoo! Too funny. They were pretty good slushies though... It's kind of ironic because I told Emma that we would stop for a treat when we left and gave her the option of ice cream, froyo, and a slushie. True to form, she chose a slushie and, given the option, that would be her choice probably 90% of the time. The irony lies in the fact that those darn slushies/ slurpees/ snowcones/ whatever you call them were the ONLY pregnancy craving I had with this little girl. And now, 4 years later, she still loves them!
We headed out to Duarte to celebrate Aunt Pauline's 75th birthday this past weekend. Most of us had a good time, although I don't know how much she understood about why everyone was there. Her alzheimer's seems to be getting more advanced and she seems to be speaking less and confused a bit more. She did get very happy to see the babies (who are not quite babies anymore, I guess) but she smiled and murmurred over Emma none the less. I'm glad the little ones still maker her happy. The day was still fun though. The food was delicious and it was nice to see so much of our family and for mom to get to see some of her siblings.
