Aquarium 2017

First, a photo that inadvertently got left out of the previous post:

She wanted her breakfast cereal in the ice cream bucket.

Last weekend, we had plans to go to the aquarium on Saturday, but friends invited us to brunch at their house.  Lilly picked the brunch and she had such a great time playing with her friend Alma.  They played peacefully together the entire time, which left Nick and me to take turns keeping an eye on Greta and having conversations with the other adults.

Sunday, Nick woke up early and skied up at Ashwabay with some friends again.  As we were making plans for the day, we decided to go to the aquarium.  We'd risk the nap thing with Greta, since she has shown herself unwilling to sleep in the car, and head to Duluth for lunch, to exchange the wallet we bought for Nick for Christmas, and then hit up the aquarium.  It was bitterly cold, so it was nice to have a warm place to go.

Lilly was Elsa, she was in her bed doing her homework

Greta went from everything being set just so, to a force of destruction,
throwing play food and emptying my nicely folded basket of laundry

A new favorite photo! Helping Greta zip her coat

The drive was just fine, Lilly listened to audiobook and I entertained Greta.  Neither girl slept but neither cried or fussed or was trouble in any way, really.

Lilly is content to just look out the window and listen
to her audiobooks now.  We listened to a lot of Ramona Quimby.

We had lunch at Pizza Luce, which was delicious.  Greta and Lilly were amazed and entertained by the man tossing pizza dough in the air.  We very briskly walked to the Duluth Trading Co to exchange Nick's wallet.  The girls had fun playing hide and seek in the women's clothing section while Nick agonized over what wallet to get instead.  Then back to the van for the short drive to the aquarium.

The girls had so much fun at the aquarium, running around, Lilly being an amazing big sister, eagerly showing her little sister all the different fish and bubbles the aquarium had to offer.  It was amazing to see the two together.  We certainly lucked out with the two of them!

Greta refused to take off her jacket

 Lilly was adamant last time we went to the aquarium she would not touch the sturgeon until she was six.  Well, this time she patiently waited for a sturgeon to come around so she could touch it - and she did!  One of the sturgeons didn't seem so happy to have people there and splashed us.

The drive home was just fine, listening to audiobook and my job was to keep both girls awake.  Nick's job was to get us home safely since it was snowing.  Everyone was successful.