Random bits from our vacation

The kids deciding that they had had enough of being a tourist at Niagara Falls. They protested by laying on the ground and pretending to take a nap.

Geocaching in the Walmart parking lot:

A hammock is the perfect place to take a nap

No, she's not drowning, she's swimming under water

Yep, we saw the World's Largest Teapot

Our Next Top Model posing with the teapot

Niagara Falls!

Visiting Niagara Falls was one of the most impressive stops on our camping trip.

First we dressed like little yellow ducks:

Then we put on our fancy new sandals

Then we went here!

And we got soaked! Not only our feet, but Manny and I stood underneath the waterfall...it was amazing and fun and soaking wet! I haven't heard Manny laugh that hard in a long time.

A Visit to the Erie Zoo

We made a tiger a little antsy by watching her. She paced back and forth in front of the kids until we left. I am hoping that the glass was really thick!

We saw red pandas, which Joe and I also saw on our trip to China last summer

We had fun watching the penguins swim

I never realized how large a rhinoceros was

When we walked through "Australia" we were able to walk right next to the kangaroos, there wasn't a fence or a wall or anything separating us from the kangaroos

Watching the lions:

The Erie, PA Children's Museum

We decided to check out the Erie Children's Museum. The kids (and Joe and I!) had a great time. It was nice to visit a different Children's Museum and see what they had to offer.

They had a sand table:

I was very impressed with their grocery store. The food was very authentic (it was real bread/muffins etc that had somehow been preserved so that it wouldn't mold...I didn't even know you could do that!). The kids spent quite a bit of time in here, shopping and playing cashier.

They had a face-painting station and, of course, Kenzie had to be a cat:

In the play house:

Making huge bubbles:

Their water table was amazing. It was huge!

Manny set these up and after many trials and errors he got the ball to go down just how he wanted it to.

Camping in Pennsylvania

We decided to spend two weeks camping in Erie, PA. We stayed at really fun KOA Campground, that had lots of activities to keep all of us busy.



We played with the goats:

We participated in Wii bowling night:

We definetly participated in the ice cream social:

The kids loved the magic show:

We played with the giant checkers game:

The kids loved that they had a movie outdoors every night:

A Visit to the Barn

One thing the kids had on their "list of things to do this summer" was to visit The Whitter Farm in Orono. To say that they love visiting the farm is an understatement, we spent over an hour wandering around looking at the cows and the horses and they still didn't want to go home yet, so we did one more tour of the farm.

When we left the house, I told the kids we were going to have a surprise. They tried to guess where we were going and then promptly fell asleep. When Manny woke up as we pulled into the farm he couldn't get out of the jeep fast enough:

I can't remember this cow's name, but she is the oldest cow that they have at the farm and the biggest, weighing in at 2200 pounds

Kenzie wasn't so excited about the large cows and pretty much had a death-grip on me for a while

Hello, there!

This girl as the patience of a saint. Manny and Makenzie latched onto her and asked her question after, "um, excuse me, I just have one more question". She knew all the cows names, who their parents were and just about every other vital statistic on these cows, it was quite impressive!

This calf is Penelope and she was born 2 HOURS before we got there!

Kenzie finally decided that the calves were just about the right size for her...

...and she couldn't get enough of the calves!

Beach Babies!

This summer we spent several days at Sand Beach in Bar Harbor. The kids love the "warm, yucky water" and love to play in the sand.

For Manny, this trip started out perfectly, we arrived at the same time as the garbage man. Manny asked him several questions about the truck, but was very interested in the recycling bin on the truck. The Park Ranger explained to Manny how it worked and even let Manny pull the lever.

Having a little snack

Looking for fish in the "brown yucky water" (there are a ton of fish in the water!) This water is so warm and it just looks gross, I promise!