Goodbye Summer

It seems that the carefree days of summer are coming to an end. After a 2 week break, Abbie returned to school today for the Fall semester. She is in a new classroom with new teachers but with many of the same kids from the summer. Of course, any little change can be a big problem when you are 3 years old. It turns out that the new classroom uses cots at naptime rather than the mats that her old room used. So, the big discussion last night and this morning was all about how she didn't want a cot, and how it might not be as comfortable, etc. I'm curious to see whether her opinion has changed after actually trying a cot for nap today.

Our last summer hurrah involved a trip to Minnesota. We saw all the usual suspects in terms of friends, and ate at all the usual restaurants. We also managed to make it over to Chad's hometown and saw some family that we haven't seen in two years, meaning that Abbie didn't remember any of them. Abbie had fun playing with her cousin who is very close in age. Of course, no trip to Minnesota would be complete without a trip (or two) to the Mall of America to ride all the rides. During this visit there was a butterfly exhibit with tons of butterflies. Most were flying around, but there were also many that were only able to walk (likely due to harm unintentionally inflicted by clueless kids and adults). Anyway, this created a prime opportunity to encourage the butterflies to walk on your hand, which I thought was pretty cool. Abbie pretty much liked it too, but at one point she tried to claim that one of them had stung her. Of course, I found that somewhat unlikely.

The last picture below is from the end of summer fair that Abbie's school hosted before the 2 week break. Abbie was pretty excited about it, as she had been promised lemonade and cotton candy. Ah, the simple pleasures in life. :)

New York City

We recently took Abbie to NYC for a few days while I attended a conference for work. She did a great job the entire trip and seems to have had a lot of fun. Of course, I had kind of gotten her all psyched up in advance by telling her that it would be the most amazing place she would ever see and that there would be buildings so big that she wouldn't be able to see the top of them and that there would be bagels so big that they'd be bigger than her head. It all sunk in pretty effectively and any time I asked her if she was having fun she would reply, "Yeah, I'm amazed."

Below is a picture of her swimming in the hotel pool the night before we flew to NY. Chad got her into this little inner tube and she was able to kick herself around pretty well.

Daddy and Abbie had a bunch of adventures in the city while Mommy was working. They went to the zoo in Central Park and to the Dora and Diego exhibit at the children's museum. Of course one of the best adventures was getting to ride the subway. Here she is standing up despite the fact that there were tons of seats. I thought it was funny that she insisted on hanging on so far up the pole. I told her that she could hang on lower but she wanted nothing to do with it. In this photo we are on our way to one of the many yummy (an expensive) restaurants that we ate at in the city. Abbie was a pretty good trooper about staying still (sort of) and tolerating all of the adult conversation. Of course, letting her play games on Chad's iPhone certainly helped.

This was after dinner with our friends Nick and Lucia whom we rarely get to see. We went to the top of Rockefeller Plaza and had a great view of the city. I think Abbie liked the bridges the best. They are huge and all lit up and she decided that they were troll bridges like the troll bridge in her Dora books.