First day of school--yes, it's still July

Our girls get out of school early (middle-end of May) and have several 1-2 week vacations which all lead to a very early start to the school year.

The girls had to be to the bus stops at almost the same time and going in opposite directions from the house, so Bill took the older girls and I took Sophia.  Doesn't she look cute in her pink, pink, pink outfit?  (She LOVES pink.)

And here is Sophia and her friendly bus driver:

It's her last year of elementary school as her school goes from Kindergarten to fifth grade.  Wow.

A very nice "shop locally" promotion

We almost always get out of the house on Thursdays because my mother's house cleaners come that day and I need to get the girls out of their way.  Today I took them to 4th Avenue, which is a fun and funky street near the university.  I thought we would window shop up and down the street, which entails about 6 blocks, then go home.  Instead we found announcements for a "Where Is Waldo?" promotion.

The girls got a "passport" at one of the sponsoring stores, then set out to find a 6" cardboard cut out of Waldo in the stores listed.  We found 15 of them!  Some of the store clerks were helpful and some weren't.  I did notice about half the clerks' eyes darted to the approximate location when I told them we were looking for Waldo.  LOL.

Holding the passports in our hands kind of gave us permission to walk all over various stores and even restaurants while we looked for Waldo.  It was fun.  And of course it got us into more than a dozen stores we never would have gone into.

When it was all over we did not stop at one of the interesting restaurants that dotted the street because they were a little more than my budget would allow, but we did stop at a Dairy Queen in the district, which was actually a very rare event for my girls.  No inside seating, only outside.  Two Blizzards and a large sundae, please.

Summer party!

Our ward (church congregation) has parties . . . just because, and plenty of them.  This was the first time we've ever had a large water feature for a party and it was a huge hit with all the kids and some of the adults as well.

We love our zoo!

This trip certainly seemed to be for the birds . . . .

 

There were a couple of good looking girls in the same area and you can see one of them in the background above.

 

This was another peacock.  Such beautiful feathers!  The bird below let me get that close to it (no telephoto lens).  It does not have an aviary but flies free.  However, I've seen it there many times, so it knows the zoo is a good home.

 

This crane got spooked by something and gave a really loud squawk that startled us!

 

There were a number of duck with their teenagers.

The girls wore their swim suits in hopes of playing in the water area, but it was closed due to an infestation of bees.  Water + heat, of course the bees like it!

 

And of course we always take a picture by the sculpture.  It's almost as good for watching growth as the marks on the back of the kitchen door.