Emily picked a spot right near the edge, and Mama dug a hole for her.
Then Em planted it herself, and carefully patted dirt all around it.
We hope it grows into a beautiful flower!
They have grown a lot since last year, and now it is much easier for them to get in and out of the pool.
The water was kind of cold, so they did a lot of quick wading, then running around the yard.
We had to search hard to find some pool toys.
For some reason, Kate decided to use the scrub brush to clean off the slides.
Then she did a little impromptu interpretive dancing. We think this dance was meant to call the sun to come back.
Emily was so happy about the pool that she literally jumped for joy.
We love our pool!
Seb's team was up first, so he was putting his batting helmet on and getting ready to hit.
Emily and Kate were pretty excited about watching his game--they'd never seen real live baseball before.
Seb took some good swings, and hit the ball hard!
He also made some good plays at second base.
After awhile he girls got a little restless, and we checked out the practice area next to the ball fields. It had these neat tires for practicing hitting....
....and also a great big batting cage made out of mesh. Fun!
Then we did some more cheering for Sebastian.
Em and Kate enjoyed cheering on their cousin!
(you can click on the letter to make it appear larger and easier to read).
And running is the correct term. I could not get them to stop running and pose for a photo, so I had to take one as they went charging by.
There was quite a commotion over by the dam, so Chris and Emily went to check it out. It was the Spring alewife run! The basin in front of the dam was filled with alewives trying to get to the pond to spawn.
There were thousands of fish in that little spot--it was pretty amazing.
After our picnic lunch, the girls ventured to the water's edge and started throwing rocks in.
It wasn't long before they started taking their clothes off and wading in. They would have preferred to be completely naked, but we said no way.
They even built a sand castle! Okay, it was more like a sand lump, but it was neat to see them playing in the sand together. They are going to have a great time when we go to the beach at PEI this summer.
Just a few months ago Kate would have considered this "too dirty" and stayed up in the grass with Mom. Today she loved it!
We wrapped up the picnic with an ice cream at the China Lake Landing.
What a nice way to spend the holiday!
While we were waiting for the parade to start, we checked out the Two-Cent Bridge. This is a historic pedestrian bridge that connects Waterville to Winslow. It was built to allow millworkers to cross the Kennebec River to get to work, and at the time (100 years ago), there was a two cent toll.
The kids really liked the bridge, but Mom was a little nervous about the big gaps at the bottom of the handrail.
The picture below was taken right before Emily learned a hard lesson about bridges over water: Don't drop your little plastic car toy, or it will float away and you will never see it again.
While Emily tried to recover from the loss of her toy tow truck, Kate flirted with some of the veterans.
Both of the girls were impressed by the high school drill team, and they wanted to help hold the banner.
There were lots of fire trucks getting ready for the parade too. This nice firefighter even let the girls sit in the ladder truck and play with the controls!
Finally the girls had had enough of the festivities, so we headed under the bridge to throw some rocks in the river, which is one of their favorite things to do.
Emily was still hoping that her toy truck would show up, but it was not to be.
The girls weren't very tired, but luckily Cousin Sebastian was visiting so they got to play with him.
Emily and Kate really like playing with Sebastian.
Connor took a shine to him too, which was nice.
Mark and Melinda came to the barbecue too--aren't they sweet?
And we were very excited to see Millie too!
Before we ate, there was some work to be done. Mark and Uncle David fixed Nana's stone steps....
....and Emily helped Melinda dig up a lilac to transplant.
Finally we sat down to a wonderful meal--pulled pork, hamburgers, hot dogs, macaroni salad, and baked beans. Yum!
The kids got their own table (with Mama), which they liked.
After dinner we had a surprise--Nana's tasty strawberry shortcake!
We all liked the shortcake, but Kate (of course) enjoyed it the most. She loves sweets.
After dessert Emily had her regular wrestling session with Melinda and Sebastian.
Later on, when we were driving up our driveway, we got another big surprise... a turtle! We saw him just in time and didn't run him over.
Emily was asleep, but Kate got to see the turtle up close. He was all pulled into his shell, but Kate was still fascinated by him.
