Happy Hollow with the Grandpaparazzi

Paul's parents came out for Clara's birthday a couple of weeks ago.  While they were here, they took so many photos and videos with their iPhones and cameras that I dubbed them the Grandpaparazzi.  (I'm sure I'm not the first to think up that moniker, but it was fitting and I like it.) 

One day during their stay, we took Clara to Happy Hollow while Paul was at work.  Happy Hollow is a little sort of amusement park meets petting zoo geared at very little kids.  It has like 8 rides total and Clara can only go on two of them - the carousel and Danny the Dino (which is basically a tram ride).  First we saw the capybaras, which are R.O.U.S.'s.

Clara was interested in the jaguar.

But she was even more interested in the meerkats.

Grandpa Nash helped Clara feed the goats.

The tortoise wasn't real. 

There were sheep.

And a brahma bull.

And miniature horses.

Clara did NOT like waiting for the carousel to start.  She wriggled and squirmed, but once it started she really had fun.  I promise.

"Let me off this thing Mom!"

We rode the carousel twice and Clara was still antsy for the ride to start up even though she had already done it once.

Clara is like her dad and believes that you must put your hands in the air on rollercoasters.  Or trams.

Her hands were still up even when she fell asleep.  The tram was pretty tame.  Clara was asleep thirty seconds into the two minute ride.

So I carried her out to the car.  It was kind of a long walk and me-oh-my this girl is getting big.  I thought my arms were going to fall off.  I could have just put her into the stroller but it isn't all that often that she will fall asleep in my arms any more and I wanted to savor the experience.

This next photo is SO sad.  Clara does not love swim lessons.  She is getting lots better about it but she was not happy this day when Grandpa, Grandma and Dad came to watch her.  Eventually she calmed down though.  Part of the problem was that it was really cold that day and she was shivering through most of the lesson.  All the babies were happy to get into the warm locker room and be stripped of their wet diapers by the time class was over.

When Clara has a hard time with swim class, I just get her a toy to chew on then swim her around and talk to her or sing to her and she calms down.  The biggest problem is that the instructor wears dark sunglasses and a big black hat and doesn't look very normal so Clara gets freaked out by her.

Surprisingly, she does best when her legs are floating up behind her and I am pulling her around by holding her under her arms.  She likes to dip her chin down and try to sneak a sip of pool water.

She doesn't relax so much into a floating position.

On the last day that Paul's parents were here, they helped us move the fridge into the kitchen from the garage.  Our friend Johannes came over to help too. 

Speaking of the kitchen, I took pictures of it today in a more-or-less-finished-enough-to-do-a-blogpost state and will try posting those soon.  Except my mom, sisters and nieces just got into town today and we are going to be busy, so we will see when I can get around to it...