It's Officially Summer!

Today is officially my first day of summer! School's been out for almost two weeks, but I went to a seven day training at my school all last week. I have never been more ready and excited for a summer than this one. This was my tenth year of teaching, and it really pushed my limits. So I'm just starting to feel free and relaxed. The only real thing that I have left to do is field hockey camp this week and then I'm really a free woman.

To kick off our summer time fun, we went to the Del Mar Fair on Saturday. Brian and I love going to the fair. It's always the same exact thing, but just something that signifies summer to us. This year is was fun in a new way because we were able to bring Bailey. We walked around all of the booths and didn't even buy anything this time--except for some delicious cookies, fresh potato chips, and caramel apple. After looking at everything to buy, we went to the animal barns. It was perfect timing because the bunnies were on display. I have always loved looking at the bunnies, except for the white ones with devilish red eyes. Bailey loved the bunnies too; I think she loved trying to touch their rabbit food even more. We just walked around and she smiled and waved hello to each and every bunny.

Then we went to the petting zoo. Things have really changed! When I was little the animals roamed freely in the petting zoo and you could just walk right up to them. Now the animals are all in their big pens and you can pet them if they come up to the fence. Bailey absolutely loved it! At first she was a little hesitant walking around to the different stalls, but then once she got the hang of it she ran from animal to animal. She was able to pet a giant cow, some goats, a sheep, and a tiny chick. We almost had a near death experience with the tiny chick. The people working at the petting zoo had to get the chicks out for you and then we could pet them. The first time Bailey pet the tiny chick, I had to make her touch it because she didn't really notice it. The second time around, Bailey walked right up and wacked the chick in a really soft way. Bailey doesn't seem to grasp the concept of soft yet, so that was her softly petting the tiny chick. The worker girl was a little surprised and the other girl pettting the chick started laughing. I told her that we needed to go pet the animals that were big enough that she couldn't kill them.

Here's Bailey with the goats. If she wasn't petting the animals, she was trying to climb their cages.

Here's Bailey with big cow, but she's already thinking ahead to her next stop.

We let her run around there for about 20 minutes, then we headed home for the day. She was so worn out that she fell asleep on the walk out to our car, but not before a ride on dad's shoulders. Here are just some more funny photos of what Bailey's been up to:

She thinks that she can feed herself now. It makes her so happy, but it also makes a huge mess.

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We went to the beach a couple of days after my workshop training. They were very sleepy days at the beach and not too happy, but she did have her rake. This was on the way down to the beach one day.

I still dress her like my little doll on Sundays. Oh, and she's walking everywhere. No more crawling :(

When she's tired during the day and at night, you can tell her to lay down to go to bed and she does. It's really cute! She can understand a lot of things right now. You can see her thinking about what to do.

And this is my favorite--this is what she thinks of vegetables! She will eat them, but when she's done, she let's you know. Look at the determination in her little face.