Hershey Park Chocolate World Happy!

We went to Hershey PA to visit Pop-Pop and walked to HersheyPark Chocolate World where Zoe experienced her first "ride" with the newly remodeled Chocolate World ride. We had a fun time and a nice visit and Pop-pop treated us all to lunch and some sweet dark chocolate treats! We haven't seen him in a while, so it was a nice visit and we hope to be back soon!

Great picture of smiles and a pretty leaf that Zoe liked.

Outside Chocolate World.

Inside Chocolate World; 3 generations of MacNeills.

"Cows that sing?" - Weird..........

Vernal Equinox

The first day of autumn and yeah, it's been a while. Going back to school has chewed into my free time and I just haven't gotten around to posting as much. Ehh, what cha gonna do? Anyway...

Zoe turned 8 months this past Tuesday. She keeps getting more and more interesting with each passing day. She says "mamamamamama" and "dadadadadada" and gets on quite a roll when she starts. We think she knows both our cats names now, so that if you say "MeeMee" or "Zazu" she will look around for them. She loved to play with Zazu by holding a cat toy that is a long stick with a string and tassle and she will flip it around for her to chase. She isn't quite crawling yet, but she explores with her upper torso, meaning she moves around a lot with her upper body while sitting still. She loves to stand and we think she might be one of theose kids that sorta skips crawling and goes right to walking.

Until next time, here are some new pictures. I will try to post again soon, but don't hold me to it.

K.

I love this last picture and I saved a big version of it can be my desktop on my computer at school.

behold the beauty of the giraffes

One last summer post before it ends. On Friday we went to the Baltimore to squeeze in one last weekday summer adventure before school starts next week. It was really a lot of fun and Zoe seemed much more interested in watching the animals than she did when we went to the Philly Zoo in late June. It was a bit hot and humid that day, but we had a great time, especially watching the giraffes. Zoe really liked watching them and there was one that seemed to like watching her, in fact, when we moved up a pathway to check out an Okapi, the giraffe seemed to follow us over there. Then we read the sign and saw that one giraffe was named Zoe, so we just KNEW that was the one that was following us! We got a ton of great pictures there; enjoy.


K.

Here we are checking out all the giraffes.

A nice lady took a picture of all 3 of us.

The giraffe wants a closer look at that baby!

Now we are on the other side of the enclosure, but that giraffe is following us.

2 Zoes?

At the petting zoo.

Taking the Zoo Tram back to the car.

the end of summer

Yeah, we have been off for a while, but we have at least ONE excuse that isn't our fault. Verizon screwed us by taking 18 days to fix our DSL that went out on 07/31 and was only fixed on 08/18/06. It took hours on the phone almost every other day during that time and was extreme frustrating not to be able to get on -line to check e-mail and update this blog. Anyhoo, we are now back.


Ok, so summer is not officially over for a few more weeks, butI will be going back to school next week on Monday for my first teacher day with Thursday 08/31 being the first day for students. As far as I am concerned, summer is over, so I am ready for cooler weather and the leaves to turn almost immediately. Unfortunately, that won't happen, I will just hope for no late summer heatwaves for my non-air-conditioned school I will have a VERY new year with a new classroom asstistant, 2 new principals and probably 6-8 new students. It will be quite an adjustment from hanging out with Jen and Zoe 24/7. I will miss them both, but I try to look on the bright side and realize that I will be home most days shortly after 3pm, I have loads of time off for holidays and such, and many more summers off to enjoy with my family.


Zoe just keeps getting better and better. She is even more animated now and can sit up on her own for long stretches of time playing with her toys. Her fine motor skills are developing nicely, she loves to pick up objects and then roate her wrist back and forth to get a better look at it. She laughs at the cats when they are playing and loves to take a bath now. She was 17 1/2 lbls, 26 1/2 inches at her 6 month check up in July and J and I feel that she is bigger now that she just past the 7 month mark last Saturday.


On a side note, my sister Karen and brother-in-law Kelvin moved to Florida near Daytona last week, We wish them well and hope to see them soon and Karen BETTER be checking this blog for pictures often. You hear me Sis?!?!


Now that we are back online and back into more of a routine with school and all, we will try to post at least every 2 weeks, but will continue to shoot for every weekend.


peace to all,
K.

bonus pictures

More recent pictures...

Vacation, all I ever wanted...

Well, this weekend we went to Ocean City, MD for a little vacation. Kevin's Mom has a friend with a townhouse just a few blocks away from the beach. The first night Kevin, Zoe and I walked the whole boardwalk (well, Zoe didn't walk:). We were so tired by the time we got back. The next day we woke up early to go with Zoe's Gram to the beach. The weather was so nice with a ocean breeze to keep us from getting too hot. Zoe loved looking at the water and sand in fact it was hard to get a picture of her looking up. We made a hole in the sand and stuck her in it and while she took a nap in her Gram's arms Kevin and I played in the ocean. It was so much fun and made us feel like kids again! After the beach we went to Waterman's and had a shrimp feast. On Monday went went to the beach again but left a little early because of the heat. Before going home we all went to Assateague to see ponies. We drove all around without seeing anything but a few deer. On our way out we parked and walked over the dunes to the ocean where we saw 5 ponies. Three were standing on the beach sleeping amid all the sunbathers. It was so funny to see.
So we had a great time and can't wait to go back especially when she's older and can see the ponies, ride the rides and swim in the ocean.

the philadephia zoo

On Thursday, we went to the Zoo with Becky, Lief, Lindsey, Zach, and Oliver ( Lief's cousin from Sweden.) We had a great time and Zoe was very good for the whole day. We are not sure if she enjoyed seeing the animals or just watching all the people all day, but she definately seemed entertained all day. We didn't get that perfect shot of her in front of the zebras, but I believe it will be the first of many trips in the futuire, in fact, we will probably have a zoo membership by next year.

More to follow,

K.

yeah, way in the back, that's an elephant




and um, yeah, that's a zebra behind jen's head



in front of the gazelle fountain



my favorite picture from the zoo



Ok, Mom, I am ready to go home now!

summer solstice

Ok, so you can tell that dad is off for the summer when he lets a weekend go by without posting. The truth is that we have been having so much fun this first week, that I just sorta forgot about it. Life has been good. We have been buying Zoe so many books at yard sales and what-not, that we had to get another big bookcase for her room. Now we have one for mainly books and another for her stuffed animals and her assorted zebra collection. I think that even those stuffed animals are going to get squeezed out a bit eventually by the avalanche of books!

We took her to THAT FISH PLACE this afternoon where she enjoyed checking out the fish and we had to talk Mom out of bringing a bunny or two home. This evening, we are going with Grammy to the Catholic High Festival to check out the lights, games, and the run-by-carnies, take-your-life-in-your-own hands rides and, orf course, festival junk food.

Next week, we are planning to go to the Philly Zoo and we will start taking more pictures of our "out of the house" adventures. We have been a little lax with the camera this week, but will get back to it shortly.

ttfn,
K.

"I hope all my days will be lit by your face" -Keane

One more day...

Just a few new pictures to add this week. Today is Kevin's last day of school and then I have a dentist appointment tomorrow. What a fun way to kick off the summer!
Last week we went to my grandfather's 89th birthday party. Zoe got to see most of her MacNeill side of the family and we had a nice time.
~Jen

pre-summer

Dad only has 4 days of school with students and 2 teacher days and the first of many summers together as a family will begin. I can't wait, but I am assuming that it will be rather difficult to go back to school in the fall, but that feels light years away right now. We can't wait to expand Zoe's world even further by going on a lot of cool trips this summer including the Philly Zoo and Washington DC. For now, enjoy a few more pictures.

K.