Another trip to the Lilly House

For our anniversary this year we had a wonderful picnic at the Lilly House on the campus of the Indianapolis Museum of Art. A few weeks back, Megan's mom came up and we decided to go back and take some pictures of our beautiful girls.

Ok, not all the pictures may be beautiful in the traditional sense...

Fouth of July in Kansas City

Sometime mid-June, Elise and I were sitting in the front room playing, when she looked at me and said "You know what? I still haven't met Aunt Courtney, Uncle Kenny and my Kansas City cousins. Can you rectify that?" (That might be a paraphrase). Regardless, a few phone calls and two weeks later, the Indianapolis McCains headed out to spend Fourth of July in Kansas City. We had a fantastic time, all the children are still in one piece, and Ken's house is still standing (or at least it was when we left).

On Saturday morning, we all stopped by Home Depot to do some construction.

Mary, Megan, and Hazel in their official aprons with their newly built periscopes.

After Home Depot, we were off to the parade. Candy and stickers were flowing.

Even Elise got into the flag-waving spirit!

And is there a better way to celebrate than with family and barbecue?

On Sunday, the sky looked threatening, but the weather promised that the rain would hold off until the afternoon. We took the opportunity to visit the Deanna Rose farmstead.

The girls panning for gems.

Hanging out in a tipi. (Megan told me to spell it like that)

Some tractor racing.

The girls found a playground with some interesting climbing rocks and slides.

And Hazel found a bouncing chicken.

And everyone found the water to play in!

And, of course, we found more barbecue.

Visitors in Indy

Here we go with Summer 2010, part 2.

After we got home from Disney World, we didn't have much time off before Sarah Kate came up to spend the week with us while Steph went globetrotting.

First, Hazel and SK tested out their artistic skills.

Soon after, we busted out the Shrinky Dinks. They were a huge hit.

The next day was "Camp Day" and the girls spent some time in the ladybug tent.

And no trip to Indianapolis is complete without a trip to the Children's Museum (or so Hazel tells me). It appears that we have some budding archeologists.

Or possibly a racecar driver.

Or even a famous Etch-a-Sketch artist!

And, of course, we stopped by the Barbie exhibit...

...and fashion was made.

A few days later, Megan's friends the McGarrys stopped by with their two kids, and wouldn't you know it, we were back at the Children's Museum.

Safety first!

You never know when you might stumble across a ferocious dinosaur.

The girls solve the fossil mystery.

And Lisey masters the trains.

As is often the case, we saw many, many more things at the museum, but managed to forget to take pictures. Oops! But, rest assured that our flurry of posts will continue. Next up: Kansas City and the Fourth of July!

The summer is flying by...

The summer is flying by, and we have done a remarkably poor job of keeping this blog up to date. As such, I am going to start posting some pictures from our various adventures, and hopefully the pictures will tell most of the story!

So, first of all, it appears that we never posted our pictures from Disney World. I guess better late than never!


After a two-day drive, we finally arrived in Florida. We explored the resort, then went and played at the Magic Kingdom.

Playing in the sand by the resort pool.

Hazel's favorite ride, the Spinning Teacups. I think final ride count was 7 times.

Elise loved the carousel!

Hazel and the dress the mice and birds made for Cinderella.

Elise being awesome.

The real theme for this trip, however, was meeting the characters. Hazel even brought her very own Alice in Wonderland dress.

Fortunately, we ran into Alice and the White Rabbit within the first 30 minutes of being in the parks.

Marie from The Aristocats, another favorite.

The whole family with Tigger and Pooh.

Hazel and Snow White having a deep conversation.

And another discussion with Aurora (Sweeping Booty).

And all the girls with TWO Alices!

Oh, and I hung with Mickey for a while. We're tight.

Not only did we meet the various characters in the parks, but we also had a dinner reservation with Cinderella!

Prince Charming, he's dreamy...

The Stepmother!

Hazel's not too sure about Anastasia...

...but had fun with Drizzela.

And, the creme de la creme, Cinderella!

Just to make everything more interesting, we happened to run into my cousin's from Colorado in Animal Kingdom. We missed most of the good photo ops, but here is one of Hazel and Lia using the buddy system.

And, finally, when we made it the Hollywood Studios, we found ourselves in the middle of a Star Wars weekend.

It's not everyday the entrances are guarded by Stormtroopers.

And there's nothing quite like seeing Chewbacca heading to American Idol auditions.

Hazel's Thoughts on Disney World

We just returned from another awesome vacation to Disney World. It was super exciting this time, because we had all the fun of anticipating this trip. Hazel and I made a count-down calendar a month before the trip and crossed another day off every morning at breakfast. She was so excited, she asked me every day if today was the day we were going to Disney World and we talked about everything right down to the color of the hotel room we were going to stay in. (She wanted it to be green.)

I have lots of pictures to upload, and I will do that soon (I am waiting to collect all the pictures in one place - the ones that we took on our camera as well as the ones that the Disney photographers took on our PhotoPass) but first - our trip to Disney as told by Hazel.

(And oh yeah, Elise is crawling now. We'll have more video on that later.)