The Dog Days of Summer

Well, the rest of summer is flying by. It's hard to believe August is almost over and Labor Day is just around the corner! I feel like it was just barely Labor Day last year back in Philly! And now here we are in Vegas, having unseasonably hot weather this month so we are trying to stay cool!


Poor Zachy got his little mullet chopped. It was just getting long enough to pull into a ponytail too, which would have been perfect for a little Padowan costume at Halloween, with Jon as his Jedi Master. Oh well, I'm sure he's cooler now and he looks so handsome! Thanks to Grandma C for cutting it.

We got to check out the Natural History museum downtown while Jon's parents were here, and it was actually a pretty cool little museum. They had an exhibit called "Bizzarre Animals" with some pretty crazy recreations of prehistoric animals. This was a crazy dinosaur-bird-thing we weren't sure how to pronounce his name.

They also had a Marine Wildlife exhibit with live eels (shudder), manarays and stingrays, turtles, fish, baby sharks, and stuffed whales. We couldn't help but sing "Baby Beluga" under this guy!

Admiring the REAL shark JAWS!! Yikes! I'd hate to see who they belonged to.

We also got to see some animatronic dinosaurs that made sounds and moved. Lucy was TERRIFIED! I had to keep explaining to her that their "feet were glued to the ground" so they couldn't move. She didn't believe me that they weren't real.

Zachy wasn't scared....as long as Grandpa held him!

They also had a fun Children's room where they could get some hands-on science exposure. Lucy got to stick her head inside a real aquarium and see what it felt like to be Nemo! Lucy's favorite exhibit though was hands-down the recreation of King Tut's tomb. She was fascinated by the mummies and canoptic jars, and all the creepy things in the tomb. All night and all day she asks me questions about mummies, and she's sort of at an age where I'm not sure how much I should tell her in the name of science before it starts to freak her out because it never seems to! Sometimes I worry she's a little morbid, but then again maybe she'll just be a doctor someday...

We are also staying cool by heading to some of the fun Splash Parks all over Vegas. This is the Dinosaur Discovery Park in Aliante right by our house. There are several splash pads and covered play grounds with lots of shade so it makes it just bearable enough for me to sit out there while they play.


Having fun at the park! We are leaving for Provo, UT where my brother Taylor is starting school at BYU on Thursday, and then we'll drive the rest of the way to Boise to spend the week with my parents and come home Labor Day. We're excited for the last few weeks of summer!