Fun with Grandma and Grandpa

This past weekend with Jeff and Jane didn't go quite as planned, since Megan came down with strep throat on Thursday afternoon, and was feeling under the weather almost the entire time they were here.  She had a fever of 102.6 even with constant dosing of ibuprofen and tylenol, and then the antibiotic was causing intestinal distress.  But she had an hour or two on Saturday when she felt well enough to play, and what she wanted to do was wash Ben's car:

She even ate a piece of watermelon for dinner, since she's been asking for months if we could have sliced watermelon on the rind and this is the first time I've cut it that way this year.  But sadly I didn't get a picture of Megan enjoying her watermelon, since she chose to eat hers while sitting on the swing.  I did get photos of these two cuties, though:

The rain held off long enough on Sunday for us to go to Olbrich Botanical Gardens for a little while.  Megan spent a fair amount of time riding in the stroller but she did hop out to jump on the rocks across the stream.

Amelia and Grandma explored the paths in the rock garden:

Everybody enjoyed looking over the bridge into the pond to see the turtle sunning himself on a log.  Isn't the redbud beautiful?

And every time we go to Olbrich, we have to go to the Thai garden so that the kids can see the elephant statue.  Nathaniel really wanted to get up on the elephant, too, and once he was up, he tried to push Megan off.  Good thing he's too little to do any damage (I don't think Megan even noticed he was pushing her.)

Surprisingly, Nathaniel didn't want to walk, he wanted to get back in the stroller, and he was mad that Megan got to ride in his stroller.  So Ben and I gave him a few power assists, which he loved!  I think it's the first time we've ever done that with him.

Everyone liked looking at the pools in the Thai garden:

Nathaniel's favorite thing in the Botanic Garden was the fountain in the rose garden.  He loved trying to catch the water, and he didn't mind getting all wet.  The girls always love to play with this fountain, too.

We tried to get a nice photo of Amelia with Grandma and Grandpa, and were partially successful.  I suggested that Amelia pick a place to take only one photo (sometimes the girls get excited about picking their favorite spot and I get natural smiles), and she picked the purple garden, of course!

I don't have pictures of anything else that we did over the weekend, but I know Amelia and Nathaniel had a really fun time with Grandma and Grandpa.  Jeff and Jane went to Amelia's school to be mystery reader on Friday afternoon; Jeff and Amelia read Amelia's new favorite book Who's On First?.  Amelia's teacher had to jump in part way through the book to explain the concept to the kids.  And then Jeff and Jane told a few little stories about Amelia, including how Amelia used to call Grandpa "Guppy" and how.  Amelia convinced them to play school for a few hours on Saturday morning - she made assignment sheets and writing projects and even planned a recess.  Nathaniel warmed up to Grandma really quickly, and even wanted Grandma to read him books before bedtime and naptime the last few days - he's never done that before!

And Megan was feeling well enough to go to preschool on Monday, although she was still coughing a bit.  But I'd arranged for her to trade snack helper days with a friend, so Jeff and Jane could go to her class to be snack helper today.  She said she had a very fun time; she got to pick the song for the day, and she picked "All Around the Kitchen Cock-a-doodle-doodle-do".  They celebrated her birthday, and she passed out tootsie pops to her friends.  She even ate her snack of applesauce and a Nutrigrain bar.