We've had a great week-long visit from Grandma Amy.

She spent a LOT of time doing puzzles and games with Quinn.

We took her to tour Quinn's new elementary school. Here he is on the playground. See the orange? :)

Guess who else think they're going to school there next year?

The girls and I also took Amy to Como conservatory to see the flowers as gardening is one of her favorite pastimes.

The girls loved/were terrified of the fake animals in the Como kids playroom. It's so hard to know what's real and what isn't!

Speaking of real vs. fake, we took Amy to Teddy bear park in Stillwater, MN.

Stillwater sits on the St. Croix river, which separates Minnesota and Wisconsin, and is about 30 minutes from our house. The kids love teddy bear park, but as you can see Quinn is much more at peace with the large bears than Penelope is!

Zahra warmed right up to them, too.

Penelope never made friends with the bears, but she did some good climbing so all was not lost.

Quinn did some good climbing, as well.

Here's a shot by the St. Croix river.

Finally, we went to Minnehaha park and played in the Wabun wading pool. I only managed to get a picture as we were leaving.

Apparently this wading pool is one of 62 free wading pools through the rec centers in the twin cities! In fact, everything we did with the kids this week was free. One of the many reasons we love it here.

We also ate tons of good food and spent lots of time relaxing at home. The kids loved having their grandma here all week and all the extra attention that provided! Thanks for a great visit, Amy!