A Girls' Weekend!

This Friday morning, Kevin left to go on his annual golfing trip with his buddies to McKenzie, TN.  Ava and I have had the whole weekend to ourselves so we decided to make it an all girls' weekend.  Friday night, I took her shopping at Target for a new float and things to play with in the pool.  Then, I asked Ava where she wanted to have dinner and she decided on Quey's (Huey's, to the rest of us).  I enjoyed my burger and she scarfed down her mac n' cheese.  It is so funny to me how stuff must just taste better to her at restaurants.  The macaroni was the Kraft kind from the box and I'm sure of this because it says so right on the menu.  About halfway through our meal, she looked at me and said "Mom, this is soooooo good!"  She has eaten that hundreds of times at home and never got that excited about it.  After Huey's, we headed over to the movie theater and saw Mr. Popper's Penguins.  Ava had a fairly lengthy internal debate between popcorn and "MM's" but finally "MM's" won out.  The movie was fairly cute and we enjoyed our girl time.  The next morning, I had to work for a few hours so Ava spent the morning with her Neena (my mom).  Mom brought Ava her favorite chocolate donuts from Howard's for breakfast and then they went to get their nails done.  Ava picked out a hot pink color for mom and red for herself.  They stopped by Sam's to get some stuff on the way home and Ava told my mom she was going to hold her hands out on the handle of the cart so that she could show off her nails.  They walked past one older lady who stopped and said, "Why sweetie, don't your nails just look so pretty!"  She then laughed and said to my mom, "She's sitting there blowing on her nails like she's drying them."  Ha ha!  She's such a girly girl.  After work, I went to pick Ava up and we all had lunch.  Then it was time to go over to my sister-in-law's parents house for my niece, Leah's, family birthday party.  We celebrated her birthday last weekend with her friends, but this time it was a family affair.  We had a great dinner and the girls had a wonderful time playing together.  Ava and Mallory were very curious to see what Leah got for her birthday.

Mallory and Ava also got a couple of gifts to open so they wouldn't feel left out.  

Showing off a couple of her little treats.

Today, we had a playdate with my best friend since we were nine, Amy, and her daughter, Hailey.  We went over the Botanic Garden as soon as it opened and spent most of the day wandering around in the fresh air and nature and getting our exercise.  I took the new camera that Kevin got me for Christmas and took tons of pictures which I am about to share :).  I have been intimidated by it because it is a nice Canon digital SLR camera and it has a lot of features which means lots of buttons.  I couldn't do anything too fancy with it yet but at least I am practicing.  

Posing with the roses on our way to My Big Backyard

Playing on the treehouse

Working on their balancing act

Playing on the "spiderweb"

Amy and I were sitting at a picnic table, enjoying our pink lemonade, by the spiderweb when I happened to glance up and see this:

It scared the mess out of me!  I actually grabbed Amy.  Spiders are one of my worst fears--I am terrified of them.

The girls played in the wormholes

Stood in a bird's nest

Dressed up as wizards

Sat in a rowboat

Had a sack race

Played instruments in the music house

Relaxed in the hammock swing

Watched the fountains

Played in the "thunderstorm"

and went to the pond and fed the koi

These are just pictures that I took that I thought were pretty.

I thought this was interesting...this is how a pineapple grows

When you pay your admission at the Garden, you get a map showing you where all of the different flowers are on the grounds.  I dragged Amy and the girls all over the place looking for the hydrangea displays because they are my favorite flowers.  We finally found it after wandering around aimlessly to the point where Ava asked worriedly, "Are we lost?"  

We decided to go in and cool off and have a fancy lunch at the Garden Cafe, Fratelli's.  We had a lovely meal where Amy declared their signature "tea tasted like perfume and their pasta salad tasted like bottom".  Appetizing, right?  The girls enjoyed their sandwiches and fruit.

At this point, we were all tired and HOT.  So we decided a trip to YoLo was necessary on the way home.

We had such a fun time!  If you have kids and haven't been to the Botanic Gardens, I highly recommend it.  Admission is inexpensive ($8 for adults and $5 for kids) and there is lots of stuff to do.  It's also a great place to take photos.  

Ava and I have had a wonderful weekend but we are ready for Kevin to come home!  Only about 3 more hours until he arrives and we can tell him all about our fun weekend!