Out & About

My inlaws just left (almost 3 weeks ago now, where does the time go??) There was, of course, the usual round of shopping and drinking, eating, etc. One of the things we did do was to go to a local pottery store, where you can choose items to paint and draw on, which are then fired for you. Mads mad some cat bowls, and Jan made a wall tile, which you can check out in the other pictures.

Lorraine and I made this tissue box cover. There are a couple of other pictures in the collection, but as you can see, we put her name on there, and also go prints of both hands and feet. The feet were relatively easy to do, but she kept closing her hands, making it really difficult to get a good print, but it turned out OK.

The weekend after they left, we went out with Godfather Mike to celebrate AJ's birthday with him. Did some shopping, got some of the cheapest gas in the country in Wisconsin and spent some time down at the lakeshore, walking around and actually in the lake paddling in just her nappy (diaper for my American readers), and she had a great time as you can see in this picture.

We have been trying to maximise the remaining few weeks of cool, but not cold weather, as all too soon the winter will be here in full force and the snow will be falling (in fact we had a few flurries last night!). We took AJ to the local park last weekend, and tried her on the slide for the first time, again she seemed to have a great time. She is such a happy baby and we are so very lucky in that regard. She is just as content bumming around, going to restaurants, friends houses, or going to the park.

This past weekend we went to the zoo. I have never been a huge fan of zoos, as I have often felt that they have their animals in such small areas, and this one was no exception. AJ didn't seem overly excited to see the various animals, although she didn't sleep all day until she collapsed in the car, so I guess she was having fun, but I was unhappy with the conditions for the animals.

The one plus side for me was that I did get to see my favourite animal in the whole wide world, and he seemed to be having fun. Hudson the Polar Bear was born in the zoo, and I guess has only ever seen ice/snow at the end of the year like the rest of us, but he seemed to be having a blast playing with his pumpkin in the pool as you can see. I have a whole sequence of him tossing the thing around in the rest of the pictures

I hear tell that Milwaukee Public Zoo is better for space, so maybe we will try that in future. Obviously we will try to get AJ to see as many of these animals as possible in their more natural environments, like safari or maybe/hopefully someday a trip to Alaska

That's it for now, all up to date. Don't forget to click the various picture links if you want to see more, but for now I will leave you with the view of the play cage! She is a very lucky girl following her recent birthday and as you can see, has soooo many toys and a great area in which to play

And just because I can, cos it is my blog, one last picture of Daddy's Little Angel. Don't forget to click on each of the pictures themselves for more pictures from the same month, event or trip.