Grammy comes to Connecticut

A couple weeks after Jackson finished school and after a low-key Memorial Day weekend, my mom came to spend some time with us in Connecticut. 

We didn't go anywhere too exciting but had a chill few days together. We showed her our favorite new farm, Westmoor and Abbie showed her the baby piggies that weren't so little anymore! We went to one of our favorite parks, Simsbury Rotary, and had a picnic lunch there. Saturday we had committed to help out with a service project our ward had teamed up with the city on. I guess when you are the exec. secretary and primary president of the ward - you kind of have to go to these things ;) But Grammy ended up helping with the kids and they played at a playground most of the time. We went shopping and got Abbie her new pair of Saltwater sandals for the summer and Jackson a new pair of Nikes.

On Monday we took off on an adventure and headed to Bridgeport, CT to the Beardsley Zoo. It's an hour drive down near the shore - close to NYC. The kids had a great morning checking out all the animals but probably the "highlight" or the memory that will live on the longest was when Abbie got "sprayed" by the tiger. It's not a huge zoo but they do have a few large animals - one of which is a Tiger. It happened to be one of the last animals we saw, and when we walked up to the exhibit it was pacing back and forth. Well apparently it was getting ready to mark its territory because it then started to pee and apparently tigers can pee pretty far away and it was basically like a hose of pee spraying from the cage. Most of the crowd was standing near the left side of the cage, that's where Jackson and Grammy were - but Abbie was still in the stroller so I had her more to the right side in order for her to see better. Well she saw a little too well when the tiger sprayed right at us! I immediately backed up with the stroller but not quick enough as the she got a little wet on her legs, feet and at the bottom of the stroller. It was really gross, really weird but something Abbie has not forgotten :)

trying to be the statue

picnic at the shore

Jackson's monkey friend

before the spray...

Abbie eating guacamole aka spinach/kale dip

Playing during the service project

At the farm

Counting the chickens

On Saturday we were helping out with a large service project our ward was involved in

Grammy brought pain books that Abbie had fun doing for weeks after.

Can you read me a story Grammy?

We made it to the shore (both kids wearing their new shoes)!

Jackson's Last week of Preschool

The end of May brought the end of preschool for Jackson. He had a great year with Mrs. Espinoza and his small class. His small 3s class had an end of the year celebration that he spent lots of time learning songs to perform for families. Tyler was even able to come see the performance which made Jackson extra excited :) He started the year knowing most of his letters, no numbers and could write the letter A. Now he knows 100% of his letters, learning upper and lowercase, can recognize all his numbers, count to at least 30 on his own and can write most letters without help.

His best friends were Nate, Blake, Levi and Audrey - luckily all of them but Blake will be in his class next year too. His favorite things to do at school were playing with toys and playing on the playground least favorite - the arts and crafts. But his teacher was proud of him that he always tried everything she asked him to do without complaining, he completed all his projects. He was also always a really good example about cleaning up and helping others. His teacher tried to always focus on their positive behaviors of the day and so I would never hear anything negative about Jackson throughout the year. But he did inform me he never went to the thinking chair (aka timeout chair) the whole year.

Singing his Lion and Lamb song

His assigned color - Gray, we had to make gray seem really exciting for him to be happy about it!

First day of school, last day of school - I think he grew just a bit!