zoo

So far 2020 has been treating us well!

We began the year with a New Year’s Eve sleepover with the Devine’s at our house. We had a “game night” theme, where we played board games and Dave prepared four courses of game meat. It was delicious and fun.

On New Year’s Day we all went for a hike in Wissahickon.

The girls with Ava and Emma Devine in Wissahickon on New Year’s Day.

It’s been an unseasonably warm January – in 40s, 50s, and a few days of 60s! One of the warmest days was also a day off from school, so I took the girls to the zoo, which was not expecting the crowds that it had. Note Lauren wearing shorts in the pics!

  • Up close and personal with a penguin

Dave and I went to the annual Union League Commodore’s Ball again. He’s not in yacht club leadership any more, but we went to support some friends who are. It’s always a fun, somewhat ridiculous evening.


At the Commodore’s Ball

Sophie is in her school’s choir, called Levering Mill, which is just for 4th and 5th graders. She’s also in the 3rd-5th grade all student choir, which held a combined concert in January. There were so many kids that they had to do it at Bala Cynwyd middle school, which has a large auditorium.

  • Sophie had a duet – front, right
  • the full choir

And then a few days later Lauren had her 1st grade musical, which was called Pirates, The Musical. It was very cute. All the kids do the singing and the teachers do the dialogue.

  • 1st grade pirates
  • Lauren and her friend, Gabriel

And we had a weekend visit from Shannon Boyle and her boyfriend Joey. They stayed over and we took them to the Flyers game, where they finally won one! The girls were very happy to be reunited with Shannon 🙂

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Sadly, summer has come to an end… But we got in as much as we could the last few weeks.

We met up with Sophie’s friend Liam from school to fly a kit in Washington Square. They were both pretty good at keeping it up. And Dave got pretty good at detangling the string.
We went to the Philadelphia Folk Festival. This was the first time that we’ve been and it was a lot of fun. Very family-friendly. We hit the kid’s stage (which is where this picture was taken). It took her a few minutes to warm up, but once she was Sophie was a dancing maniac. 

We went to the zoo with Nana and Pap Pap when they were here last weekend. We checked out the new kids zoo, where Sophie pet some goats. She also chased around some chickens (but luckily didn’t catch any). 

And on the last day before school started, we hit the Camden aquarium
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Sophie had off from school today so I took her to the zoo this morning. This is the third time that she’s been and she was definitely more into it this time than the others. She knew most of the animals and the sounds they make – although she was getting the sheep and goats confused.

We went to the petting zoo area where she got to brush a goat. I’m happy to report she was much more careful with the goat than she is with Benson. 
She also went for her first pony ride and loved it! It’s tough to get such a good smile out of this kid. Riding lessons in her future perhaps? 
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This weekend I took Sophie to the Zoo. Sunday was a beautiful, almost spring-like day, so we decided to get a little time outside and see some animals.

 Sophie up close and personal with a gorilla. Of course, she didn’t even seem to notice him.
 We went into the petting zoo area and spent some time with goats and sheep. She looks a little skeptical of this particular goat.

The bird exhibits ended up being her favorite. I think there might be Ibis in this pen. She was also very interested in the flamingos and ducks. Who knew? I guess next outing we’ll hit Kelly Drive to see some Canada Geese.
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