The close of Summer 2012 was so darned busy that it's only just now in November being fully chronicled! Rozzie shifted from quadruped to biped and Mama, Daddy, and Josie have been struggling to keep pace with her.
What follows is a fairly random assortment of fun images showing what the Joh(a)ns(e/o)ns were up to in July and August.
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| Aaaaand, the next second it went into her mouth |
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| Josie gave Roz a tail |
Josie introduced Roslyn to all Kid City has to offer. Josie still loves Kid City, but now has a slight aversion to the science museum in general ever since the Grossology exhibit came to town. This new exhibit has a couple large robotic people that scare the living crap out of Josie for some reason. On one visit she was so paralyzed with fear that she became trapped in the elevator.
Ay carumba.
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| "Doe, doe, doe!" |
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| Working her way up to captain |
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| Checking out the sharks at the Birch Aquarium |
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| Josie helps load kegs at Green Flash |
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| Stroller Strides Olympics |
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Josie and Roslyn got a ton hand-me-down toys recently including a pile of Barbie stuff (dolls, two houses, car, etc.), a small nursery of baby dolls, two bassinets, dress up clothes, and an entire Thomas the Train set. Despite the plethora of goodies, it seems they need two sets of everything for both girls to be happy.
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| Enjoying (fighting over?) a doll house handed down from Allison | | |
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| All gussied up to do some food shopping |
When the girls' easel took up real estate in the kitchen, Josie's drawing skills quickly blossomed.
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| I'm smiling because I'm drawing on my leg |
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| Portrait of Daddy |
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| Josie got some fancy duds from Peter and Ari during their recent trip to Hawaii |
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| Josie's lizard got some fancy duds, too! |
Without a doubt the highlight of Josie's summer was the San Diego Zoo's Nighttime Zoo Celebration. Each summer from mid-June through Labor Day the zoo stays open late and provides an assortment of entertaining and interactive shows for attendees. Josie, Annie, and Roz wore a path from home to the Balboa Park visiting several times per week after nap time. Josie's favorite activity was the Surfin' Safari Bush Band featuring several nightly hula hoop contests on the hour. The trampoline frog show was her very most favorite. But, her super-duper-looper-shmooper favoritest thing was the Steam Powered Giraffe band.
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| Hula Hooping |
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| Jumpin' Jammin' Frogs and Princess |
A family friend, Archer Brown, attended the Nighttime Zoo celebration almost every single evening. By August you could count on Archie to win the hula hoop contest at least once nightly. He is pictured below in the brown shirt.
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| Hula Hooping! |
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| Roz and "Weswie" |
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| Josie slurps a smoothie before catching a frog show |
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| Hula Hoopers! |
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| The last frog show of the summer |
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| One last hula |
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| One last Steam Powered Giraffe show |
On the last night of the Nighttime Zoo, Daddy took Roz home while Grammy, Mama, and Josie stayed for the final Steam Powered Giraffe show. The evening ended with a parade of all the actors and musicians and chances to get photos taken with your favorites. Josie chose to get photos taken with all the members of the SPG.
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| Josie and Michael |
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| Josie and The Spine |
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| Rabbit, Josie, The Jon, and Sam |
At the end of August Grammy came to visit to give Mama some extra help while Daddy took a camping trip to Mexico with his brahmigos. The weather was sticky-icky so everyone stayed pretty low-key.
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| Rozzie shows off her dexterity by introducing some coffee cake to the floor of Claire de Lune |
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| A dip in Mission Bay |
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| Josie loves prancing in the water |
Although Josie loves to splash around in the bay, she had a hard time this summer with swimming. In June she graduated from Mister Rocky's group and switched to a new teacher. Consequently she started hating swimming. Mama dug in her heels and upped Josie's lessons with Mister Andrew to four times per week. Josie's swimming improved vastly -- stickers for good lessons helped, too. She went from an Arsenio Hall fist pump stroke (highly ineffective!) to some actual crawl strokes.
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| Adding stickers to her collection for good swimming |
After Labor Day Josie, having left her old school behind last May, started school at College Park Preschool. It is absolutely fabulous and, most importantly, she loves it. Mama and Roz loved spending so much time with Josie over the summer and miss her when she is gone. But, they love hearing all about snack time, art studio, and her peers' antics on the way home.
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| Josie's final days as a regular Stroller Strides kid with Viv, Roma, and Kaelyn |
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| First day of school! |
