Our Saturday

Jeremy went flying on Saturday and after Maddie's ballet class, we went to have lunch with him and bring him home. He took the girls out to the Cessna 172 just to hop in and check it out. Madeline doesn't like flying as much as Abigail. She usually wants me to hold her and then once we're in the air she falls asleep while Abigail is gripping the yoke trying to fly the plane (we used to have access to a 2-seater in Alaska, so the girls always had to fly in our laps...) and I'd get airsick from the bumpy ride & Abbie's rough flying skills.
Jeremy's busy buckling the girls in...Madeline is smiling now, but she was screeching "I don't want to fly!" when the camera was turned away.I think all of Madeline's complaining got Abigail a bit worked up and she started to freak out too. I got her out of there immediately - I didn't want her to be scarred and lose our 4th generation pilot (as I'm betting she'll want to be a pilot more than Maddie, although this photo doesn't help my case).

Later that afternoon, the girls and I decided to go exploring around Fox Ridge (as we were car-less while Jeremy was at school with his study group). We walked over to another playground that I discovered on a previous walk with Abbie. The girls loved the swings and the tall slide. And there was lots of shade, so that was super nice too.


She loves to let go and hang backwards. Fearless.
Madeline has discovered that when you lie on the swing, twirl around, and then lift your feet up you can spin around super fast.

We continued to walk around and pick up various leaves and rocks and came upon a really neat tree. It was full of big, lumpy, bright green "hedge apples" or osage oranges. We picked 3 of them and brought them back home to decorate. They're now sitting on our front step and anyone who walks by is enthusiastically invited by Madeline to come and look at them . She calls them The Batastos - that's their family name :) We can't wait to decorate with pumpkins next!
This was our collection bag - it's got the 3 hedge apples, various tree leaves and a few rocks.
These things were super sticky. Madeline realized that after she removed them from her cheeks.
She didn't like the sticky sap either :) And yes, Abbie had her new (thank you Michelle!) swimsuit under her dress, which came off once we got home.
Here are our Batastos. I found random washers, screws, fasteners, and even a bent nail to decorate them with. Hopefully the squirrels won't run off with them...we'll either have a very sick squirrel or possibly a flat tire to deal with.