Fail!

As of last week, which marked the official start of summer for the girls, I blocked my work calendar from 4:30 pm on AND entered a self-reminder that reads "Leave at 4:30 to go pick up the girls". Sadly, I have yet to leave at 4:30 as there is always something that comes up that prevents me from doing so. I will keep trying, but so far clearly my efforts have completely failed.

Cincinnati Nature Center

This morning I told the girls that I wanted to go to the Cincinnati Nature Center, and they both complained. They had never been there, and had no idea of what it was all about, but they said they did NOT want to go. We went anyway - basically because I said so - and they had a great time. I know it because they told me while we were there, and they both chose it as their favorite part of the day when they went to bed.

Clever!

Bella is a smart little girl, maybe too smart for her or her sister's own good.

Tonight, during dinner, she did something that Sofia didn't like. Sofia then screamed at her: "I knew I shouldn't have listened to you when you told me that if I emptied your lunch bag for you, you wouldn't be mean to me ANYMORE". As soon as Sofia said that, Lionel and I immediately - and simultaneously - started laughing out loud. Leave it to Bella - the 4 year old - to take advantage of Sofia - the 8 year old. Unfortunately Sofia did not find it funny at all and started to cry. "I don't like it when you make fun of me", she said. I got up from my chair and hugged her, and tried to convince her that we were not laughing AT her, but WITH her. That kind of worked, or maybe after a few minutes she just realized that crying for that was just a silly thing.

This afternoon we took the girls biking again, but this time to the Avoca Trailhead which is where Gabi and I had our 12 mile run a few weeks ago. We were only going to be there for about 1 hour, but had to cut our visit even shorter because Bella was not doing a good job staying on her side of the road, and she gave us a scare going down a hill and not using her breaks. She is making progress on the bike, but clearly still has a long way ahead of her.

Tennis!

After our Redlegs 10K, and after each one of us took a short nap, we went to play tennis in support of the Special Olympics. I was looking forward to playing at the Lindner center, where the tennis tournament takes place every year, and taking a tour of the player's lounge, fitness center, locker rooms, etc. The weather earlier in the day didn't look promising, so I was afraid that the event would get cancelled, but luckily the weather got better. Lionel was tired after running in the morning, but for the most part managed to hang in there. Even though we lost our matches - due to my inexperience and Lionel's lack of practice - I was glad we got to go to the event this year, and hopefully we can do it again. It never ceases to amaze me how many events take place in Cincinnati that we don't even know about, and that we could have been doing all along. After living in here for almost 15 years, clearly there are many things that I have yet to discover.

Reds 10K

This Saturday morning Lionel and I ran the Redlegs 10K. My goal was to run it faster than I did the Thanksgiving 10K, and I am happy to report that I did! I shaved off 2 minutes from my time. Lionel finished after me, but considering that he went to bed late and only slept like 4 hours, that wasn't too bad for him. Although later in the day, he did need a nap...

Bella and the couch

This past Friday we had a bad day with Bella and our new couch. First, she had the bad idea of drawing sitting on it and got marker on a few different spots. Then, in the afternoon, she walked too close to it holding a mango milk shake in her hands and spilled some of it on it.  I was absolutely livid! Lucky, very lucky for her, I was able to get rid of both stains.