The Adventures of the Dillon Family: May 2012

Saturday, May 26, 2012

Friday night stroll

We bumped into my grandparents downtown last night after dinner and I'm not sure who was more excited to see who...Lucy AND my grandparents were all smiles!

Although I didn't get a picture of Lucy and my grandpa, she was VERY concerned with his whereabouts. As we were walking around, whenever he would end up a few steps behind us or pause at a store window out of Lucy's sight, she would conjure a concerned look while she threw her arms in the air with her palms facing the sky, her gesture for "where?" and say "Papa?" Then he would wave or poke his head around the corner and all was right with the world again. They treated us all to ice cream and were very patient as it took a VERY long time to walk the four blocks it took to get there. When you go backwards as often as you go forwards, and when you stop to look in every window, and when you literally run circles around trees on the sidewalk until you are so dizzy you can't walk straight, it takes a while to get anywhere!

Monday, May 21, 2012

Dillon Campout

A few weeks ago... Am I the only one noticing this trend? This blog is not happening in real time, I am consistently about three or four weeks behind in reporting what is actually happening in our day to day lives, and when I find more hours in each day I will make this happen quicker, but until then...

I digress.

A few weeks ago the Dillon clan went camping, and I don't just mean our little family of three. According to my count there were 19 of us there; we had a great time fishing, playing washers and bean bags, eating, drinking, sitting by the fire, talking and laughing. Had there been boats, rounds of golf and a trip to Granny's Pantry we would have started to confuse this Saturday night with an evening in Minnesota... If you give this family a lake and some beer, good times will be had by all.

I didn't take a ton of pictures, but I want to point out that I DO realize there were 19 of us there, even though my photos are tightly honed in on that little girl of ours. I would say that I'm going to work on this, but that would be a blatant lie, because I am happy taking pictures of her all day long.

The weather was cloudy and cool but ideal for sweatshirts and a campfire. And, in a twist I never saw coming, the weather ended up creating a pretty sweet deal for this mom who was already planning to take one for the team; you see, we decided that I would take Lucy home to sleep when it started getting late, that way the party could go on without any concern over a sleeping baby and that sleeping baby could be a sleeping baby instead of a cranky baby all night and likely the next day... Little did I know that taking Lucy home would be the best move anyone made all night; after a bath and some books I put that sweet little girl to bed and dozed off myself. I woke up around 3:00AM to the sound of pouring rain outside, and while I remember hoping the storm had jumped right over the farm and my camping buddies, I snuggled back up to my warm DRY sheets and drifted back to sleep. When Paul called the next morning he said they had played musical tents all night long trying to avoid the wettest, sloppiest abode, some people had opted to sleep in cars, some cars would up stuck in the mud, he had been cuddled up next to our very wet dog, and the stories go on and on. All the while Lucy and I well-rested and I have never been so happy to call it a night early!

How did we ever get a cooler packed without her help?!

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Lucy's Way

The other day I said, "Lucy go sit next to your dada, I want to take a picture" and Paul said, "How about YOU sit down with Lucy and I'll take a picture? There aren't that many pictures of you with Lucy."

Great.

This is what ensued.

Not bad, but always keep trying for the PERFECT shot, right?

I mean, the sucking of the thumb definitely speaks to what
she is up to these days. But, hey, we can do better.

Fed up with this STUPID game and trying to make a getaway.

At this point we decided our chance of success would go up significantly if we let her run around the yard for a while.

Time elapses.

The idiot parents try again...

Paul swoops her up, brings her back to me and I try to
talk her into giving this whole picture thing another whirl.

Deer in the headlights on the left and yes I STILL hate this and
will continue sucking my thumb on the right.

FORCED.

MELTDOWN in progress.

So...we FINALLY (yah, I know, I know...) give up.

She proceeds to scramble off my lap,sprints for this bush, and plops down defiantly.

And while I should be totally offended that she didn't want this photo shoot to happen with ME, and adding insult to injury she's totally psyched about sitting in this bush (check that smirk on her face!), this, THIS photo below of her sitting in a bush looking 100% posed while she's really just doing things HER way, made the whole episode worth it.

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Zoo!

A few weeks ago my mom and I took Lucy to the zoo - - and watching her take in the animals while she made animal noises was so much fun! We saw tigers, elephants, gorillas, orangutans, hippos, geese, ducks, sheep, goats, llamas, otters (man do they have fun!), giraffes and more.

This otter was having a ball! He would perch himself up on this rock...

...dive into the water backwards...

...and then swim to the other side to flip around and do it again. We watched him repeat this pattern for five minutes. It was hilarious!

The farm animals were definitely high on Lucy's list. She did not want to leave this llama (above) and she had a great time feeding the goats - more on this below!

This video below needs a little explanation in order to enjoy it fully... First: she drops a piece of food for this goat at the very beginning, so when she appears all-consumed by picking something up off the ground through the fence, it is that piece of food that she dropped initially. Second: she turns around and says "bath" because there is a woman washing the stall next to Lucy and so naturally, "bath." And three, she figures out that one of the goats is a bully (and kind of a jerk!) and she gets mad because he won't let the other goat eat the food.