Play Date in the Country

On Sunday (June 30), we went to visit my friend, Terri, and her boys L&L at their acreage. The weather was beautiful and it was a much needed getaway! We had a couple of moments of excitement - a near drowning, a tumble down the stairs and fighting a wasp - but otherwise, it was a relaxing visit. Terri grilled us hotdogs and we just caught up and played with the kids who seemed to have a lot of fun too!

Girl Fun!

Just a few cute pics...I painted Zoie's fingernails & toenails and she was very excited about the whole thing! Check her out striking a pose!! Ha!

Summer, Summer, Summer!! Fun, Fun, Fun!!!

Even with the job loss and consequent searching that I'm doing, we're still managing to have a really fun summer so far! We've had a couple of visits to the Lincoln Children's Zoo once with Wendy, Marty Jr., Pam, Caitlyn & Joslyn, then with Zoie's little daycare class, then with Connor to see the String Beans!! Early in June, I found a slide/house combo thing at a garage sale for Zoie and also bought one of those EZ set pools for the backyard, and I think it's hard to say who is enjoying them both the most! It was nice having the slide as we got to have our little friend, Marty, Jr., spend an evening with us while his mommy & daddy went to the races. Here are some pics to catch you all up!

Here's PCJ and Zoie riding to the zoo in the TruCK!

Zoie is giving Baby J-bug some "kid advice"...

This IS only a statue...right?!

My little otter friend!

Mommy & Zoie feeding the greedy camels!

Zoie having fun drawing on the sidewalk with her chalk

Zoie having a ripe, juicy strawberry...a true sign of summer!

Zoie and Marty sharing some yummy raspberries!

Melody playing with Marty...he loved the kitties!!

Zoie and Marty playing on the slide/house combo thingy!

Bath time for hard playing kiddies!

All tuckered out!

Zoie riding on the big yellow school bus to the zoo with her preschool class!

The teacher trying to round up all the kids before heading into the zoo!

Zoie and her school mates waiting for their groups

Later that same day...back to the Zoo with Vonda & Connor! And Zoie's 1st pony ride! When she got on the pony, she said, "Yeeeehaw!"

Here's Connor on his little pony ride too...

Zoie & Connor having a seat in the Butterfly Pavillion

Playing on the huge spiderweb...ooohhh

The String Beans...bean it like ya mean it!!

Zoie jammin out to the beans!

A couple of cute lil chickadees!

Blowing bubbles by the pool...

Coppertone tushy!

Mommy in the pool!

Ft Lauderdale Slide Show

Here is a slideshow of our trip to Ft. Lauderdale...from the flight there to the flight back and everything in between!! Enjoy!

Little Slide Show

Some pics I played around with...Click on the little arrow in the center if it doesn't start...

Florida Vacation

I'm finally getting around to posting about our vacation. Mom, Zoie and I were very lucky to be able to spend a relaxing week on the beach in Ft. Lauderdale at the end of May. With hindsight being 20/20 as they say, I'm so glad we were able to take this trip as we might not get to go on another trip like this for some time. While it was pretty hot in Florida, it was still awesome! We really just hung around the pool, hotel & beach...and we did take a one day excursion to visit a place called Butterfly World, which was awesome. Zoie loved all of it! She kept wanting to go to the beach and swim in the ocean & pool. In the evenings when we would walk to restaurants, she loved hearing all the different kinds of music playing from the different places! She would laugh and dance...she also loved flying on the planes there and back. It also rained the last day we were there...in all the trips I've taken, this was the first rain storm I can remember anywhere and it was there & gone in no time, but it left an impact! Here are some collages I made because I took SO many photos (I know, that's a shock)!!

And It's Back to the Drawing Board!

So, remember back in October when I mentioned that I had gotten this great new job that allowed me to work from home and to work with the software that I like? Well, on June 2, my position with that company was terminated effective immediately - workforce reduction due to the horrible economy.

I am doing surprisingly well, with my main concern being for Zoie. But we are blessed that we have a roof over our heads (via Mom!) and things could be much worse. I'm definitely not the only one that is in this situation as more and more people are finding themselves without work. I'm trying to stay positive about the whole thing...I really believe things happen for a reason!! I have faith that God will take care of us...and we're praying for all those affected by similar situations as well as the victims of the recent severe storms/tornados around here.

There will still be the cute pics of Zoie on here when I can as well as the exciting saga of my job hunting experiences...I know, you can hardly wait! LOL

Stay tuned.......

Bicycles and Summer Play

One day down the street we noticed a little girl's bike out by the curb for the trash folks to pick up so I went and got it. We gave it a good check up and it just appeared to need a good cleaning up and some basic maintenance, which it got thanks to Pop-pop Jim. Some other neighbors had a spare set of training wheels they let us have and I found a toddler bike helmet on Freecyle...and here is the result:


We've also been enjoying time outside in general and I just thought I'd post a few pics of us (or Zoie, rather) playing...

~The String Beans!~

If you've never heard of them or aren't from Nebraska you might think they're just another veggie...but these String Beans are a local musical group who write and sing children's music. They're really a lot of fun and are great with the kids...our local public libraries had them play in different locations to kick off the summer reading program so I took Zoie to a couple of the events. The first one was on Sunday (6/1/08) and Lindsay went with us. Zoie really got into the music and loved dancing around with the other kids.


The very next day they had another show at another library and we also attended that one but this time Grandma joined us. The 'Beans' usually have space right in front of where they play to let kids dance and they give 1 or 2 kids a poster after each song for being such great dancers. Well, this night, Zoie had the honor of winning a poster for being the best sound check dancer! She was very excited! And, not only did she get a poster...so did Grandma!! One of the guys was goofing with mom during a song so he gave her a poster...leave it to Lucy! :) Afterwards they both got their posters signed by the guys.


More about the String Beans:
http://www.thestringbeans.net/
and see one of their videos at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ib6df6MeZCI or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttPE_l2Y5LU&NR=1