CJ and Family

If the last three weeks were "ordinary" ...
this week was anything but!

Day 243. You know it's going to be an interesting week when you look outside your office window and see your son climbing on the shed roof. Of course he wouldn't want to use conventional means for obtaining those heights ... like ladders. Or anything boring like that. ;) #allboy

Day 244. And then came Tuesday. We said good-bye to our Hannah-bug as she traveled south with Grandpa to spend a week with her best friend's family. I made sure she was well-stocked on bedtime hugs. ♥

Abby decided that Toby needed some comfort after Hannah's departure. Or maybe she was getting comfort for herself ...

This first day sans Hannah seemed very. very. long. At some point Mommy decided a resounding game of "balloon ball" would perk everyone's spirits. It did.

Daddy made sure we wouldn't forget Hannah at mealtimes ...

Day 245. Mommy was missing her best babysitter!! (And so was Abby!!!) The playpen helped, but it was no substitute for Hannah-bug.

However ... reunions like this make it all worthwhile! ♥♥♥ (Many thanks to Faith-Ann's mom for all of the pictures!)

Hannah had fun catching up with friends around the neighborhood ...

And at church. :)

Good night! Sweet dreams! ♥

Day 246. Day 3 sans Hannah. We're continuing to get creative ...

And sending Hannah pictures to remind her of all the ~~crazyness~~ fun she's missing. ;)

She, however, was thoroughly enjoying a visit to the zoo with friends. :)

Day 247. And more field trips on Friday! They got to step back in time with the Magic Tree House!

And we got out of the house. ;) We enjoyed a wonderful day with Aunt Heather at The Wild Animal Park!!

It was lots of fun getting to see all of the animals!

But the best part was being able to feed them! Even the animals known to be a little more feisty were able to be fed through specially designed PVC-tubes.

We all loved getting to see lemurs in action! They were so cute, and they really liked their treats!

The giraffe's tongue was so long! :)

And then we got to watch the zoo keepers feed some of the animals requiring more specialized diets (and not our fingers ...) ;)

Watching the big cats was very. cool.!

What a fun day!!

It was so good to catch up!! ♥

Day 248. Saturday was another fun-filled day! :) Hannah and Faith-Ann visited the water park ...

While we went hiking at Taughannock Falls off of Cayuga Lake with Uncle Gary, Aunt Denise, and Nathan! :)

Lots of cool stuff to see!

And oh! The fun of watching little ones swing. ♥

#puredelight

♥

The boys thoroughly enjoyed having Daddy around to give them huge under-doggies! :)

And maybe they liked showing off to Mommy a bit, too. ;)

The water was a definite magnet!

♥

Hmmm ... we might be just a touch over the weight limit ... Guess it's time to start hiking! :)

This was our first vista ...

Abby did great in her new backpack carrier!

Every time we thought we were getting close to the Falls, we kept hearing things like "Oh, another half-mile..." ... except that we heard that about three times ... each about a half-mile apart.

Lesson #279 - Never trust hikers to give an accurate estimate of distance.

But reach our goal we did! Taughannock Falls! A bit dry, but still falling 215 feet!

And here's our crowd! :)

As we were hiking up, we were under the impression that we'd have to turn around and go back down the same path. Considering that we were about 1.5 hours into our hike and lunch was at the bottom, that wasn't a very encouraging prospect. Once we finally reached the Falls, we were happy to learn that another trail led around the opposite rim, and we made it down in significantly less time than it took us to get up! We also enjoyed a bird's eye view of Cayuga Lake. :)

Lots. Of. Stairs. Going down is so much easier than going up!

After lunch, Peter found a tree to climb ... Are we surprised? Nope. His plan for descent was jumping. About 10-12 feet. We decided that a broken leg would not improve our plans for the day, so ...