Lots of kissing and water...and a trip to Chattanooga

We had a fun week with lots of activities. We skipped market this week and worked on getting the house in order and having fun time together, which was nice. Market is fun, but exhausting!

This week Chris had a meeting one night, so we met Aunt Avery at the mall. She taught Elena to throw pennies in the fountain, which she really enjoyed once she got it. Daddy found an inch worm on his pants after doing yard work, and Elena liked it very much. Here, she's trying to kiss it. She also loves bees very much, so we have to be careful about that...no kissing bees.
I bought her this little pool last week, and she really enjoyed filling it. She really did not enjoy getting in it, though.
We heard about a water park really close to our house that we didn't know about-and I thought I knew everything free to do in Knoxville! She liked the small fountains, and she liked it when we'd swing her legs in the bigger ones.
Saturday night we celebrated Chris's birthday (which is today) at the much acclaimed Senor Taco restaurant. All in all, a little disappointing for the hype (it's one of those dives that everyone seems to know about) but fun to be together. Here's Elena hugging Uncle Nathan's neck. Most conversation seemed to go around bikes, since Chris, Avery and Nathan had all gone shopping for them that day.

Elena loves to shut doors on us and have us knock to get back out, but she's just figured out how to knock herself. Cute.
Yesterday we took an impromptu trip to Chattanooga since Chris had to work. He dropped us off downtown and we went to the aquarium and to eat lunch, then met him at Coolidge park. Leni liked the aquarium much more than I thought she would.
Playing around the fountains outside the aquarium.
Kissing the seahorses through the glass.

Kissing the turtle through the glass. The turtles were her favorite all day.

They had a really neat butterfly garden and she loved chasing the butterflies. They release some everyday, and had several that they were letting kids hold while their wings dried off, then they were supposed to put them on a leaf where they'd be safe. One little girl was trying to be sweet and put one on Elena. She apparently didn't notice it at first, so I got a few pictures that are sweet.

Then, mama pointed it out and she FRIEKED out. She threw the poor little thing on the ground. I picked it up and saved it, but she was done with butterflies after that.
I thought she'd love the penguins (who doesn't) but she didn't care one bit about them. Here's how tall she is next to them, though.

This is in the undersea cavern. There's water all around you. You can see the shadow on the floor of water moving. No matter what, I could not convince her it was safe to walk across, so I went and picked her up.

Playing in the fountains outside of the aquarium for real-with swimsuit and sunscreen on.
Playing at Coolidge park. She got less shy as the day went on.

Kissing the turtle

That's our week. I also want to say Happy Birthday to Chris! It's his 29th birthday today. We started with sleeping in and cinnamon rolls, and even a goodbye kiss from munchkin who only kisses animals and inanimate objects, and we're bike shopping and having dinner at La Costa tonight! Sounds like a fun day for daddy! We love you!