LEGOS!

Ethan is getting to stay home with his papa all week this week, and we kicked off today with a little Lego action. A neighbor gave the lego table and legos to us last summer, but this was the first day that Ethan wanted to play with them (he was especially impressed with his papa's skills in using the timer on the camera!).

Jungle O' Fun - NOT!

Well, we decided to take little man to a fun place to play today, and it came down to driving to Champaign for Ants in the Pants or Springfield for Jungle O' Fun. We decided on the hour trek to Springfield and got online to find the address of Jungle O' Fun. We arrived, and I imagine we got the same feeling that Chevy Chase got in the movie "Vacation" when he and the family pulled into Wally World and it was closed. We didn't park way out at the edge of the parking lot to "avoid the crowd," but did go to the door to make sure it had not moved someplace else. Ethan had thankfully fallen asleep just minutes before (after an hour of "I WANNA PLAY!!"), so we thought we were safe. We had a $20 gift card to Toys R' Us, so we figured we might make it up to Ethan by taking him there. He woke up as we pulled into the parking lot and immediately said "I wanna play!" We went inside, and as soon as we walked in, they announced over the PA that the computers were down, therefore no gift cards, credit cards or debit cards could be used. I am not kidding. Since I usually carry about $3.27 in cash, this was not good. Fortunately, we ended up staying so long that they got things working again, and we made a couple of birthday purchases for little man.

In other news, Ethan spent the evening a couple of nights ago on his first lightning bug hunt. He really enjoyed it and cracked up everytime one took off from his hand.

Stone Mountain

We went to Stone Mountain one day while we were in Georgia. Ethan had a great time, and was not even scared of the skylift to the top of the mountain. Of course, the choo-choo was his favorite thing.

Picture Time

While we were in Georgia, we had somebody take a few pictures of us at Starr's Mill (an old mill that is very scenic - also used in the filming of a portion of the movie "Sweet Home Alabama" (the glass-blowing shop)). A few of the pictures are posted above.

Ethan's Big Plane Ride

Ethan flew with us to Atlanta on July 4, exactly one year from the day he flew home from Atlanta with us for the first time. He enjoyed this flight much more than that first time, and actually fell asleep about half way through it and even slept through the landing!

The Zoo

Ethan got to go to the zoo with his cousins today. One of the highlights of this trip was feeding the goats. He laughed so long and hard that he ended up covered in drool! There was one goat in particular (the biggest one) that would wait until somebody put a quarter in the food pellet machine, then butt her out of the way and eat the food out of the machine. We saw this happen three times before a man held the goat while his wife got the food out. I'll include a picture. Ethan also got to ride the merry-go-round and the train. It took him a few minutes to get used to the merry-go-round, but he finally got to where he enjoyed it (about the time it was over).

Playing with the Cousins...

Ethan got to spend some time with his cousins, Heather, Emily and Kristen, several times over the last week or so. Here are a couple of pictures from their walk to the park and one of him playing cars with Emily.