Our Last Hurrah

This past weekend we took a last family of 4 "vacation" to St. Charles, which is only 25 minutes from our house. We left Saturday around noon and came home a little more than 24 hours later. It seemed like a lot longer though, since we had so much fun - the girls did especially, which made it extra fun for me and Andrew. The main highlight was staying in a hotel - ours had numerous fountains that they splashed in, as well as a pool, of course, for a swimming adventure Sunday morning.

Happy girls pulling around our suitcase...Kara did it first and then called Anna over so they could be "bests" and do it together. As you can see, Anna wasn't quite as into the sisterly love...

Anna being a joker - they are starting to display their senses of humor, Anna especially. Kara is more likely to be the one in the background saying "no," and telling me the truth instead of making up silly stories...though she's a joker in her own right. They've been running around the house the past couple weeks making turkey noises and when I asked Kara what her turkey name was, she told me "grandpa." :) Today they ran around saying "Anna Porgy running away" and "Kara Porgy running away" from the nursery rhyme Georgy Porgy..."when the boys came out to play, Georgy Porgy ran away." They are so much more fun now that they can express themselves!

Pretty much all we did on our trip was walk around downtown St. Charles and eat various meals (mostly outside, a novelty) - rain/a huge thunderstorm kept our time brief Sunday, so we didn't spend as much time at the big park by the river as we would have liked. Highlights included: the first restaurant that had a waterfall and tons of birds looking around for food, a dog in a stroller - the girls circled the stroller forever until they finally got to pet him, bouncing in the booths at another restaurant, seeing horse-drawn carriage rides - one with an especially loud horse that was much imitated, and a huge dog they got to play with at lunch Sunday - it licked their faces and tried to take their people, which=fun in their book! They also apparently liked the "mean boy" who pushed Kara and then tried to take her milk cup. They have since decided that they didn't like the dog in a stroller, because babies should be in a stroller, and that they didn't like the horses. Whenever we go somewhere the past few days, Anna makes sure to tell me there are "no horses" before we get out of the car. One of my highlights was when we saw the covered wagon near downtown and Anna (and Kara) told me to "uncover wagon." :)

It seems like we're still going to be waiting for a while before we become a family of 5 (I've been having fewer contractions than even the very few I had weeks ago, and he seems like he's more comfortable in there than ever...I am too). Today the girls started telling me they want brother to come out of my tummy, which is definitely new. In case he does come soon, I am so thankful that we got to have one last little time of focusing only on the girls and having fun with them!