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The kids seemed to have a wonderful time these last two weeks.  We are so glad they are home, but know that the visit with grandparents and break for the parents was good for everyone.  They were with my mom for a week, and then with my dad for another week.  They spent the week at my mom's swimming in the pool, playing at the park, and visiting with cousins.  At my dad's they went to VBS in the evenings and did some swimming there, too.  My dad brought them back this weekend with a stopover in Birmingham to check out a children's museum that they all loved.  We all went to the zoo yesterday (minus Lance who was playing in a golf tournament) and Lance and I had to go to a shindig last night, so all of the kids got to play together for one more night with Paw Paw and Tia watching them.  Today we are having a lazy day and the kid's seem to be having fun getting reacquainted with their toys and such.  Tomorrow art camp starts and at some point today I have to find the motivation to go get stuff to make lunches, shirts for their tie dye activity, and to wash clothes for the week, but for now I'm using the rain and catch-up time with the kiddos as an excuse to procrastinate  :). 

The zoo yesterday included a visit with "dinosaurs."  The kids were not scared at all this time and loved it!  It is so hard to imagine what it would really be like if dinosaurs were still alive - but these are realistic enough for me to know that it wouldn't be good! 

The birds were pretty friendly this time, too, and Katie really enjoyed feeding them!  They landed on my arm and head immediately when I walked in so the nectar I was going to let the kids feed them was gobbled up pretty fast.  That ended up being a good thing, since when I handed it to Tyler and a bird immediately came to eat it from his hand he screeched and dropped it all!  It actually was very strange to have birds landing on you and pecking at your hair and ears!

Tyler's favorite part may have been stomping in puddles.  It was rainy most of the time, but once the sun finally did come out we were grateful that the rain had kept it pretty cool and comfortable for June, and the animals seemed more active.  That elephant in the background eventually got into the water and was playing chase with a bird! 

It's hard to believe that we only have five weeks until school starts back.  It was my plan during the school year to try and get a jump on buying uniforms and whatnot, but I noticed that stores are already fully stocked with back to school gear so I think I am going to be with the masses, again, searching for the very few plain, collared dresses in "girl" colors that they seem to sell out of immediately.  I was holding off in case we decided to move since the other county doesn't wear uniforms, but we are pretty much decided that we are staying put for now - still have a ton of stuff to do on our house to get it ready and can't seem to pull the trigger on anything where we want to be, which tells me that we haven't found exactly what we are looking for just yet!  The kids really, really want to stay at their current school, and I am becoming more and more disillusioned with common core (which both counties have), so we may stay here indefinitely and put the kids in private school, anyway.  Too much up in the air - so we are going to just put all house and school stuff on the back burner and just concentrate on enjoying the rest of the summer and getting ready for first grade!