Junior Ranger Day
Saturday was Junior Ranger Day at the Water Safety Center at Lake Mead.
Isaac's brother, Zacarias, was working and invited us to come down and check it out.
We're always up for anything that the girls might have fun at, so we got ready and headed down to the lake. It was right next to where my parents dock their boat, so it was pretty easy to find.
When we first got there, Grace was a little shy and skeptical about everything. It took her a while to warm up.
We found Uncle Zac by the fire truck and Grace hesitantly climbed inside with him:
She was a little afraid until I took her to the front of the trucks and showed her the lights. Then she thought it was "sooo cool!"
Charley was pretty curious and kept wanting to check everything out:
Grace saw Uncle's helmet and thought that was pretty neat. Then Daddy checked it out, too:
Since Charley was so curious, Daddy gave her a better view of everything that was going on. Then she checked out the Rescue Truck:
Stef and Presley were there, too. We didn't get to see them for very long though, because we came when they were getting ready to leave:
Daddy went to take a picture with the girls by a giant Smokey the Bear. Grace was terrfied of him, but Charley didn't mind him:
Then we saw the real Smokey the Bear (aka: Uncle Zac) walking around. Grace was still scared and didn't care that it was just Zacarias in there.
When we were getting ready to leave, I told Grace that we were going to say "bye" to Uncle, and she said, "No! He's a smokey bear."
Next, we headed over to the other areas to learn some more about water safety. The girls met Coastie. He was the cutest little boat that moved, blinked, and carried on a conversation with them. It was adorable:
When we were parking, Grace saw a turtle and kept begging us to go down there. Charley and she both loved Travis the Tortoise and loved touching his shell:
They also had a lizard and a snake. Grace liked watching them move but wasn't getting anywhere close to touching them:
After we were done with the reptiles, we started heading back up to the fire trucks. Grace spotted Jameson (Noah and Easton's baby brother) hanging out in his stroller and got so excited. Charley just loves him, but how could she not? Look how cute this little guy is:
Then we found Noah and Easton. Grace instantly lost all sense of fear and had so much fun:
I just love these kids so much! We got so lucky to have the best neighbors (and now friends) ever!
When we got back to the animals, Grace would tell them, "The snake isn't scawy. Come see him." It was pretty funny, because she was scared of him just ten minutes ago.
They checked out the tortoise again, and followed him around:
Then it was time for us to go. We had a date with Grandma Lisa at the District to paint the rest of the pieces of the girls' tea set that we got for Charley's baby shower. She couldn't make it back then, and we finally got around to finishing it.
The girls had a lot of fun at Junior Ranger Day. I had two desert tortoises at my dad's house as a kid, so it was fun to see Grace and Charley so interested in them. I never knew about this place, and it was nice to have something else to do by the lake other than just enjoy the water. Plus, the girls got to learn while they were having fun!
