Grandpa's here!

Grandpa came down to Florida a couple of weeks ago, so that my mom could travel up to NY to see her mother who isn't doing well. We're so incredibly lucky to have the two of them!

It didn't take Ava very long to warm up to Grandpa.

Signing "eagle."

Where did Ava's hand go? Is it under all those beans?

Here it is!

I had the Wednesday before Thanksgiving off, so Dad, Ava and I spent the morning at the Schoolhouse Museum. It used to be the actually two-story school house in Boynton Beach and has been converted to a hands-on museum with exhibits about old Florida.

Ava feeds the cow ping pong balls and then they go through the cow and come out the udders into a bucket. She loved it.

An indoor playground made to look like the mangroves and estuaries of the Everglades.

After the museum, we had a great lunch on the intracoastal. Ava and Grandpa took a walk to look at all the boats that were out on such a beautiful day.

Helping Mommy unload the dishwasher....one piece of silverware, one plate, and one glass at a time. :)

Since the tv was dedicated to football on Thanksgiving, we set her up in the office so she could watch a Baby Einstein dvd.

A Thanksgiving feast for five - including Dad and Doug.

On Friday, Ava and I hit the nature trail at Green Cay. I was hoping to get the full 1.5 miles in, but she had other ideas. We managed .5 miles, during most of which she pushed her stroller zigzagging down the boardwalk.

Taking a break in one of the chikee huts.

We all took a nice late afternoon stroll along the canal and Ava got a boost on her Daddy's shoulders.

One family in our neighborhood has bunnies that are kept outside. We always stop there on our bike rides. One day we were lucky enough to meet the owner and got to pet one of the baby bunnies. When we walk down there, Ava likes to chase them! In the video, it looks like she's trying to herd them (and not doing a great job of it). Toward the end of the video, you can see the baby bunny that looks like it's chasing her!

Since Brent and Nicky are away for the holiday, Bandit and Browser are our house guests for a few days. Ava loves them and also loves teasing them at the table. She has been really nice to them and even brings them her fake fruit to snack on.

On Sunday morning, we drove up to Lion Country Safari. It's basically a drive through zoo. Here Ava is taking a peek at the lions.

There were all sorts of animals, but I thought the rhinos were the most impressive and HUGE!

The giraffes were really cool too.

After the drive-thru safari, we walked through some of the exhibits. If you look closely, you can see the turtle that's sunning itself on the gator's back.

The highlight for me was feeding the giraffes. At 18 feet tall, we had to climb up into the observatory in order to meet them face to face.

Ava said "hi," waved, and blew them kisses.

What a wonderful holiday weekend!