As soon as one grandma leaves town another arrives. Cincinnati Grandma (wink, wink) came for a visit and to wish Lauren a happy birthday. We also got to take the kids for a Memorial Day picnic in the back yard.

Lauren turns four today. To celebrate we had a big Princess Jumpy Thing and a Priness Party. Lauren is really into princesses. A few of the neighbors came over to share in the Princess Barbie cake. Lauren’s big present was a Princess Barbie Castle that she seems to like for some reason. Lots of pictures are in Image Gallery 22.

The kids love the zoo, and we went for a couple of hours this morning. The weather was awesome. Laurn thinks the zoo needs a few more pottys (a total of zero along the long animal trail seems like not enough) and Bethy thinks the zoo should get goats that are a little less scary. We didn’t even have time to go to the best part of the zoo (the huge playground).

There was a “program” at the Princess Castle School (that’s what Lauren calls her daycare). Apparently the rehersals were all held on days when our kids weren’t at school, so we didn’t think they would want to be in it. Lauren, however, let us know just how wrong we were. Of course once Lauren said she wanted to be in it, the other two wanted to participate too. They all did amazingly well (considering they had no practice). I video taped it and Jen took pictures with the camera. The best of her pictures is shown below. I decided not to put the rest of them on the website because, well, you get the idea.

It was everyone else’s turn to leave me behind. Jen, her mom, and the kids went for a last-minute trip to Chattanooga. They were only gone one night, but they were able to do a lot (including see Rock City!). I put some of their pictures up on the site (see image galleries 20 and 21.

Jen & I were in Miami Beach while the kids stayed home with Painting Grandma (aka Singapore Grandma, but we only use that term around Monkey Grandma who’s been lobbying to have the grandma names changed). I think they did pretty well without us. Maybe we should leave them more often.