Full Week

We had such a fun week. Last Monday we got to go swimming with our neighbors at his parent's house. Clara was extremely scared of the water at first, but by the end she was even swimming without her ring, just her floaties!Then on Tuesday we played all morning at a friends house. They have a very fun backyard and Clara was so sad to leave. But I was able to lure her away by telling her that I would take her to a new park. My friend had told me about it and I'd been wanting to take Clara. Since my friend lives right by it, I thought today would be the day. Clara was so happy as soon as she saw it, she giggled and asked if that was the park we were going to. When I said yes, she screamed, "Yay! I love that park!" She ran all the way there.It was so hot outside that day that we left the park to go to the water park. Clara had so much fun here. They have a lazy river, which Clara was in heaven just floating in. I didn't take my camera, so I got this picture off their website. This was Clara's favorite place to play. Both halves of the pirate ship had water slides. At first she would only go down them on my lap, then she got to where she had to hold my hand, and then she was going down them all by herself. I loved watching her run from one slide to the next. It seriously made my week.Friday we went to the carnival for Summerfest. (Our city's annual celebration.) We started out at the craft section and Clara got to make this visor for free. (She won't wear it anymore though because she thinks she can only wear it on rides.)After we made her visor, we headed over to let her ride some rides. She was so happy to ride the merry-go-round. She was a little scared at first, so I held onto her back. At one point I let go and she realized that she could hold on all by herself. She then told me that I had to get off the ride and wasn't very happy when I told her I couldn't until the ride was over because it wasn't safe to jump off a moving ride.But her favorite ride of all was the boat ride.

Saturday morning we went to a niece and a nephew's soccer games. They were so much fun to watch. After the games, we headed to the Summerfest parade. We were all ready to go when Jeremy had some last minute business to take care of before we could leave. So this is Clara waiting patiently for Daddy to come.Clara met a new friend and danced with her as we waited for the parade to start.Clara's favorite part of the parade were all the princesses (both the ones pictured and all the royalty for the local pageants.)She would wave emphatically at each one as if they were actually waving to her. It was so cute!After the parade came a firework show. Clara loved it and giggled through most of the show. There were quite a few people around us who mentioned that the highlight of the show was listening to Clara ohh and ahh.

• I helped a friend shorten some pants this week. She changed her clothes in Clara's room and left the pants she wore over in the room while I figured out where to have the new length be. Clara came out of her room and said, "Thanks for the new clothes. I can wear them when I get bigger!"

• On our way to our friend's house (with the big backyard) I was naming all the people who we would get to play with. I mentioned that they had a baby named Thomas. Clara said, "Thomas is a train, not a baby!"

• We walked to a park to play this week. Clara was asking if we could go to the new park. I told her no, that we were walking to a different park. Clara was disappointed and said, "I thought you said we were going to the new park." I replied with, "No, I said we were going to a park, not the new park." So now Clara calls our local park the "a park."