Lucky Day

Today was a lucky day all around at the Howe house. Daddy was supposed to work AGAIN, so he headed in for a twelve hour call shift in a rather downtrodden fashion. He really has had a rough schedule lately--lots of weekend call and two weeks of nights. Jillian and I decided to make the best of of a (finally) warm day around here, so we loaded up to take a stroll and visit our neighbors. Daddy hadn't been gone more than 20 minutes when he called to say that he arrived at work to discover he really didn't have to work! That shift mistakenly appeared on our home calendar. Not sure how, but that was no matter to us. We suddenly had the entire day laid out before us to spend as a family. How did we spend it? I'm glad you asked....
While at the neighbor's house, we learned that they made an incredibly sweet purchase for our babe. They bought Jillian a baby swing to hook onto their swing set! Jillian can now go swing side by side with the big girls who so adore her. She was quite pleased!


Kyra and Kate were proud to pose with Jilly Bean

Since Daddy was now home with time to spare, he was able to assemble the book case we bought for Jillian's room the day before. Jillian tried to be helpful, but mostly just enjoyed the maze of shelving pieces to crawl through.

She explored the finished product (don't worry, it is bolted to the wall)

And tasted the book of her choosing.

Daddy wanted to practice his open water swimming skills (in preparation for an upcoming triathlon), so we hit a local beach (I use that term loosely, by the way--I would not call it a beach, but it is labeled as such) to watch him. Jillian loved sitting in the grass, climbing all over me, and showing off her new enormous grin.

We returned home for more swinging, a quick BBQ dinner, and a nice long bath. What a fun summer day it was!