Summer Fun

Here's a sampling of things we've been up to this summer:

Chinese cultural festival

There's a big exhibit of Chinese art at the Milwaukee Art Museum right now, and as part of that, they had a Chinese cultural festival one weekend. Claire was fascinated with this dragon.

Elsa got her face painted and she got the Chinese character for "beautiful" painted on her arm. At least, that's what the face-painting girl told us it meant.

There were tons of Chinese crafts for kids—they made fans, paper lanterns, and Chinese opera masks.

Claire loved her fan.

We also took a quick stroll through the exhibit. These guys are supposed to be a modern version of the terracotta warriors, which Bob and I saw when we were there.

The Pool

We recently joined the indoor tennis club by our house, and they have an amazing new outdoor pool that the girls just love, especially Claire.

They have a zero-depth area, splashy things, and a big box of pool toys, so the girls are in heaven. Claire frequently asks to go to the pool. If we go to the club and I take her to the playroom instead of the pool, she cries. Meanwhile, Elsa has been taking swimming lessons there all summer, and she has made the most amazing progress! She can now float on her back for more than 5 seconds by herself, swim by herself for a few body lengths, and even jump in on her own.

Ozaukee County Fair

We didn't make it to the State Fair this year, but we did hit up the Ozaukee County Fair in Cedarburg with friends Aaron and Ethan, who were back in town from Florida for a few months.

Claire even made it onto a few rides. She LOVED this train!

But she wasn't too sure about these bouncy cars, as you can see. Ethan's like, "Whoa, what's with this crazy chick?"

Claire's favorite part of the fair was the Rabbit and Chicken barn. She could hardy wait to show Elsa the bunnies she found.

Zoo classes

Claire has started zoo classes! It's hard to believe she's old enough, and yet Elsa started these classes when she was quite a bit younger than Claire, what with her fake zoo birthday (so Elsa started when she was only about 22 months). Here's Claire making her very first Zoo Class masterpiece.

In general, Bob and I have both noticed that Claire's behavior when we're out and about has improved immensely in the last month or so. She's becoming a lot more fun to do things with, and she's not so crabby when things don't go exactly her way. Yay, Claire! Thanks for cooperating with our busy summer!