Monday, June 28, 2010

jumping jelly beans

Who knew learning to jump required so much practice

Monday, June 21, 2010

Lucky Little Girl

Willa is a lucky little girl to have a daddy as special as hers.


He takes the time to share his favorite things with her.
(there is a video - refresh the page if it didn't load)


He takes the time to do her favorite things.


And he takes the time to show her the world...in a way only a daddy can


Happy Father's Day! 
Thank you for working so hard for us and being such a wonderful daddy & husband.  We love you!

Sunday, June 6, 2010

our lake is gone

I looked out the window the other day and noticed the lake looked a little low despite a bunch of spring rain.  Every few hours, I noticed it looked even lower.  Soon I realized it was being drained.  We still don't know why exactly, but we assume the home owner's association did it on purpose for some reason.  It's been empty for almost a month.

So our beautiful lake that used to look like this...

Now looks like this...

UGLY! It looks like a waste land. (luckily it doesn't smell bad).

I miss the water.  And I feel so bad for the animals.  At first, we'd see fish flopping in the little puddles.  But they're all gone.  Now just the turtles, ducks, and geese are left.  They move around in the mud and gather in the little puddles.

They used to swim around...

But now they have to walk...

When I was looking back trying to find pictures of the lake, I came across these in a folder entitled "deck photo shoot".  I had to post them.  ha-ha.
The real star of the photo shoot was Willa, of course.  She is 8 months old in these pictures.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

camping at Natchez Trace State Park

We took advantage of one of the last cool weekends in early May and met our friends who live in Nashville at Natchez Trace State Park to camp.  Willa was a great camper during the day.  During the night...is a different story.  I know she woke up the Lindemanns, whose tent was next to ours, several times with shrieks and cries.  And most likely, she woke up most of the campground. Sorry!

But during the day, Willa was great.  She was curious and happily played with sticks, rocks, and the 3 Lindemann girls.  

She stayed out of the campfire and ate her fire cooked meals.  She was happy to play on the rusty old playground.  (It was so old school.  It reminded me of playgrounds when I was a kid.  Metal and hot and dangerous.)

She loved wading in the lake while Matt and Ingo went canoeing and did a great job walking along the nature trail.  She loved the long bridge that crossed the lake.

The Mid South (that's what they call the area around here) is definitely NOT the best place to camp, but with good company, it's worth it.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Brown Fam Photo Shoot



zoo

Three times a year our zoo has a member's night.  It's open late, there's a DJ, and all the rides are free!  We went last night and had a great time.  Willa rode the carousel for the first time.
She loved it.  She had the biggest smile on her face. (not that these pictures show that.) 
I love watching her experience joy.

We hit up another section of rides with another carousel and a train.  This time Matt captured her smile, but the picture is blurry.  Darn.  Still cute, if you ask me.

All of the animals were out and were fairly active.  There was a new Birds & Bees exhibit.  You could walk right into the cage full of parakeets.  They were all over...landing on people and flying right by our heads so you could hear the buzz of their wings.  It was neat.
It was a late night for Willa.  She is always in bed before 7:30 and usually it's by 6:30.  Last night she was up until 9:15.  But she was happy and good so I'm glad we went.