Flips & Feathers

I had to laugh at the faces aghast the other day at the mall when Annelise decided to show off in the play area. They have a giant, plastic "melting popsicle" that functions somewhat as a slide...and Sis decided she wanted to do flips down it. Yeah. When she turned the first one, the grandmaw sitting directly in front almost shrieked and immediately scanned the parental faces to see which one of us was *obviously not* paying attention to their charge. I saw her radar sweeping my way, immediately locked eyes with Annelise, and started clapping & cheering: "Good job, pumpkin! Make sure no one is in front of you at the bottom when you go!" After her fifth flip, MawMaw actually began to believe Sis was worthy of my trust and smiled. :-P

I tried to capture it on my phone, but with no image stabilizer, this was the best I could do:

(Can't wait for gymnastics this fall! :-D)

Annelise is also rather obsessed with feathers. When we were leaving the blueberry patch/bog/field, we found a ton of turkey feathers in one row. [Thinking turkey met fox...] Annelise was more excited for those feathers than the berries! (Gross...) On Tuesday at the zoo, it was two peacock feathers with iridescent green stripes & a bit of ostrich fluff. Last night, as we left the ice cream parlor, she spotted a black flight feather from a large bird in the parking lot, and even though she had her hands full manipulating her drippy peppermint cone, and even though rain was beginning to sprinkle, she (meaning we both) had to stop for it.