The summer went by so quickly!  On 8/25 Andrew took the kids out in a rowboat on a nearby lake/pond.

Here are some pretty awesome portraits that Sarah drew of me and Andrew.

If I recall correctly, Blaine made this hat as some sort of identification for “Kid Police”.

On Monday we had some doctor appointments in the city so we made a day of it!  In between appointments we had a picnic lunch in Central Park and rented a toy sailboat.

Then we had ice cream and listened to a jazz trio.

This picture makes me laugh because usually Blaine is reluctant to be in any photo, but this was one I was taking of a scratch that showed up on our car, and he was eager to jump in!

Another day we went to the beach in the morning and had Bona Bona ice cream in the afternoon.  So delicious!

Another day we went to the zoo again, because our membership was about to expire.  We had to park in a strange spot but we were excited to see the red panda was just beyond the fence!

It was a rainy day so at one point we had to duck into the lego building area to wait out the rain.

The kids really liked this hump-backed cow, and this was the first time Sarah was really into feeding the animals.

Then we stopped to see the sea lions, and ended up staying for awhile because they were about to be fed.  They were very excited!

We decided to check out the “World of Birds” since we’d never been there before.  It was… okay.

But we were very excited to see this bird on the walk back to the car — trumpeter swans, with babies!  This reminded us of Louis from the book, The Trumpet of the Swan.  Also makes me wonder if the Bronx Zoo needs to clip the swans’ wings as they planned to in the book.  🙁