April revisited

This is the final catch-up post from three outings/events in April that were probably the last weekend activities in which I participated for about 6 weeks while it was dissertation crunch time. The first are just a few pictures from Duke Gardens. It has become a tradition of ours to go to Duke Gardens before the morning session of General Conference.

This is classic Rippy right now: holding George and old cell phone that he carries around--and not looking at the camera.

They painted the bridge (which used to be white) bright red. I'm sure they had their reasons but I preferred it when it was white. In any case, the real reason I was posting this picture was to comment on the proportional length of Ainsleigh's legs (click to enlarge the photo for a better view). Too bad she has not been blessed with any Weston coordination to go along with them.

I'm not really sure how she and I are related a lot of times, including in this picture:

The duo:

The duo gone rogue:

The second outing was Touch a Truck, which we also attended last year as part of Rippy's second birthday festivities. This year it was the week before his party. It is a fund raiser for a local boy scout troop that offers kids the chance to climb on, pretend to drive, and honk the horn of every type of vehicle imaginable.

And yes, that includes the air horns.

Driving a trooper's car

Waving goodbye to the helicopter as it lifted off.

Driving a town bus

A size comparison

The third set of pictures is from Rippy's third birthday party. He has been obsessed with the Lion King for a while now, as explained back in January when we took the kids to see the show when it was in Durham. And, he made good on his January request for a Scar party.

Some of the decorations (the lion on the top right of the sign was Scar. Thanks to Krista for sharing her artistic talents with us!).

The cake--admittedly much too cute to pass as Scar but I loved the design and Rippy gave it a green light.

As soon as we started singing Happy Birthday he blew out the candles.

He exhibited a similar amount of patience while waiting for a fork:

The mysterious package from Farmor and Farfar.

Look at that face!

Fortunately it wasn't so dangerous afterall. Inside was this lion that Ripken's great grandmother Janice made many years ago for Uncle Garth when he was a boy.

Even Marcos had a snuggle with the lion--which was saying something because it needed a bath.

Rippy's favorite gift was a keyboard from Sarah. It was perfect given his interest in music, its impressive range of percussion tracks, and its portability. Here he is getting a quick tutorial, after which he told Sarah, "I need a beat!"

Rippy's first groupie, Gigi.

There were also a few lion crafts for the older kids (which turned out to be just Ainsleigh). So, now that he is age 3.167, that is the story from when he turned 3.0.

And thus ends the out-of-order re-telling of spring happenings chez nous.