Fun with the Forwards

The Forwards and Chautauqua...the pictures tell it all.

Dinner at a restaurant in Westfield, on Lake Erie, before our arrival.

Roasting s'mores by a campfire on the Chautauqua waterfront makes for great smiles.  Mommy and Addy.

Daddies and their little girls.

Midway is supposed to be fun for the kids...I'm pretty sure the adults managed to squeeze in some fun, too.  

Graham and Addy vs. Brad and Cora in Water Wars.  Both teams came out wet!

Water Week

Water, water everywhere.  Or at least everywhere we want to play this week because it's so hot!  Sprinklers, pools, Lake Erie, and at the end of the week, Lake Chautauqua.   This was an evening we spent at Huntington Beach on Lake Erie.

Chocolate Ice Cream Anyone?

Cora made all who walked by her at Shaker Square smile with her disaster of a chocolate ice cream cone.  It was one of those 90+ degree days and we walked to Dewey's for ice cream.  No one had the heart to deny Cora her "choc-o-late."  Not even soaking in OxyClean overnight could save this outfit.

ABC's & 123's

Creativity was lacking a bit this week, but lots of books and counting games filled our time.  We did squeeze in a very fun trip to the zoo.  Here's Addy, and Cora in spirit, playing our game of seeing if we can find an animal for every letter of the alphabet.

Addy doing her best elephant.

Cutest meerkats ever!

Feeding the lorikeets.

Monkeys all around.

A Summer Evening with Friends

We had some friends over for dinner the other night.  The girls provided entertainment, while we all enjoyed the sunset.

(excuse the chocolate ice cream evidence on their faces)

 

Science Week

Science Week!  Another hit in the Lanz Family Summer Camp series.  Addy, Cora and I started by creating journals, just like Sid the Science Kid has, to keep track of our various experiments and observations.  

 We did a bubble making experiment, making green goo, the classic Diet Coke and Menthos explosion, various combinations of the chemical reaction between baking soda and vinegar, and more.

Here's the video of the Diet Coke and Menthos explosion.  It's not Mythbusters, but not bad.

And rounded out the week with a trip to the Great Lakes science Center, of course.  Here's a demonstration of "slippery"  :)

4th of July

Fun memories for our annual 4th of July celebrations in Chautauqua.

And here comes the parade.

But shortly after it started (and by shortly I mean 45 minutes into what is otherwise a 2 hour parade!) came this...

We, and the people around us, literally took sanctuary in the Episcopal Church while the massive thunderstorm passed through town.

Festive cheesecake by Zee Zee and Addy.

Fun in the lake.

Picnic in the park, with Grandpa Johnny, Zee Zee and Great Aunt Mary.

No trip to Chautauqua in the summer would be complete without a visit to Midway.  Cora is still talking about "Riding horsey, riding boats, and copters"

"My sister is such a crazy driver it's like this car is a roller coaster!"

We particularly like Cora's technique.

Taking the Bemus Point - Stow Ferry.

Bug Week

That's right...Bug Week.  Bring on the creepy crawlies!

The week started with fun at Horseshoe Lake Park - a great place to look for real and pretend bugs.  Here's our little spider up in her web.

Speaking of spiders...pay special attention to what happens after "down came the rain and washed the spider out."

Cora loves tunnels - see her grin!

"I found a bug!"

"Too!"

Addy and her ant.

We also adventured to the Botanical Gardens...here the girls are taking in some cockroaches.  Ick!

And the best surprise of the week were the baby praying mantises!  Grandma Sherry took Addy to a local nursery that she saw was selling chrysalises for various bugs.  The container came with two, and so we assumed, very wrongly as it turned out, that two baby praying mantises would emerge.  Boy were we surprised!  There must be a hundred!