Missing Henry

It's been almost a week now that Henry's been on his trip. He should be home on Sunday. We miss him quite a bit and are very much looking forward to his return. He may even get a cake. Maybe you've followed along as Dad has blogged their trip. I also promised Henry that he could do a blog post when he returns. He's been taking photos with one of our old digital cameras. 

In the meantime, we've been having lots of special time with Clara. We've taken a few evening swims with this hot hot heat. And we may have visited DQ a couple evenings as well. Clara really had a swimming breakthrough a couple of nights ago. She's putting her head in the water and swimming like a little mermaid! 

Clara's favorite summer activity, though, is probably catching lightning bugs. After swimming and eating ice cream the other night, she stayed outside to do some catching. She loves to put them in her bug house and then, immediately, let them out again. I do seem to have gotten one blurry photo with an actual lightning bug in it!

Liz and the girls are here this week. We were able to celebrate her birthday with her, which was also the day Bampa came home from the nursing home where he had been staying for about 2 months. We were all very pleased to have him come home! Unfortunately, we were so busy eating cake and chasing babies that we didn't get any photos.
The girls did come over for a little playtime yesterday, though, and I caught a few shots. Here are Mae and Frederick being generally busy.

And here are Clara and Vivi, in coordinating dresses, refusing to coordinate smiles for a picture. Oh well, they still look cute. 

Last week and this week Clara has been in a Y day-camp, 3 mornings a week, with her pals Emily and Emily. Today they had a mini performance that was quite cute.

After her 'show,' Clara and I went out for lunch and a haircut. She always says she wants her hair short short. I always resist. I also always feel a little guilty, because it is her hair, after all. I've been letting Henry wear his a little longer, so I let Clara cut hers a little shorter. It's hard to tell in this picture, because of the braids, but it's a pretty dramatic difference. It will grow back. It will grow back.

We ended our day with leaving Frederick and Pete at home and going for a movie. We may have had popcorn and frozen yogurt for dinner. The report is that Henry has been to see Despicable Me 2 and Turbo with Grandpa, so we thought we should at least try to keep up. We saw Despicable Me 2 in 3d, which was pretty fun. We may have also made a quick stop at Claire's (Hello Kitty headband) and at Macy's (Origins face wash).

Oh...I almost forgot! Our week started out with Frederick and I getting rear-ended in the van. That kind of sucked. We were on our way back from the grocery store and stopped at a red light when the car behind us just popped on forward. It jolted us pretty well, and I immediately jumped out to check on Fritz, but he pretty much fell right back to sleep. We then had to pull over into the Techny drive and sit for an hour or so, waiting for a police officer and then waiting for him to fill out all of the paperwork. I was pretty shaken up, but we were both fine. The car, however...

 So now we're driving this beauty of a rental. It's a little fun having something different, but it will be a tight squeeze as soon as Henry's home and we have to try to fit 3 seats in the back! It does sound like the van will be ready for us to go camping and up to Dad's next week though, so that's good.