It's a Zoo Out There

Brad's vacation was quickly coming to an end so we decided to take one last outing together and invited my parents to join us at the zoo. We saw the new visiting snow leopards, the kids got their arms painted, we watched the elephant get a bath, we took a lot of silly photos with the new animal photo backdrops that are all over the zoo, and just had a nice time walking through the park together.

Nomi got a butterfly and Riley got a snake painting.

A few people have asked me about photos from our entry project and they are coming! We just finished the drywall and primed last night so I am getting closer to a point when I'll share our progress hopefully by the end of the week!

The End of a Great Week

Yesterday was our last day having Brad home from work, so we spent the morning at the zoo with friends, and then had a few people over in the evening as well. It was a great way to spend his last day of vacation!


I think the kids really enjoyed having their daddy back. And vice versa. What a special week for our family to enjoy together. We are so blessed.

A Week In Review

What a fun, and busy week we've had! Here are a few of the highlights from our full week:

THE ZOO:
My friend, Jayne, joined us on Wednesday for our first trip to the zoo of the season. It was fun for Naomi to be old enough this year to really enjoy the animals. We seemed to get lucky and see a lot of fun things happening, including the feeding of the huge albino boa constrictor (the highlight for Riley...), and the sea lion putting on a show of tricks for his trainer.

FRIENDS:
Friday night the kids stayed with my mom and I was able to go to girl's night with my community group. Lot of pizza, Mary Kay, and laughter pretty much sums that up. The kids had a blast sleeping over Grammy's house too. The next morning, I went to a wedding for a friend I have known since middle school. The wedding was at a church on Highland, so although I won't make it to the lilac fest this year, I got to take in some of the splendor of the lilacs. It was fun to attend the wedding with my other long time, childhood friend, Laura.


RILEY'S SURPRISE:
Following the wedding, I rushed back to my mom's house to get Riley ready for his big surprise Saturday afternoon. My mom had found out earlier this week that our local Association of Performing Arts was putting on the show, Peter Pan! So my parents and I decided to surprise him with it. He didn't know what we were going to see until we were walking into the theater and the lady handing out programs said, "Welcome to Peter Pan!" He was thrilled! The theater was nice and small, so we were right up by the stage in the 2nd row. The cast was mainly local children, but they did a great job and Riley was entranced by the performance.
One week down, and one to go! I talked to Brad last night, and they get to have a day "off" today, so they are going to go on a long hike and spend the day swimming at the waterfall they go to every year. He was really looking forward to that. Here is a photo from their swimming day there last year - he's jumping off a big rock.
This week, we are looking forward to having Nana here for a few days, and hopefully finishing up the dining room!

Pittsburgh Zoo

We have been anticipating a trip to the Pittsburgh Zoo for quite some time now. So when we saw the weather was going to be cool, but nice, on Friday, we decided to take advantage, bundle everyone up, and get there! My whole family got in free with our zoo membership which was awesome. It was a great zoo - fun animals, great exhibits, well laid out, and it even had an aquarium which was huge! One of the highlights for me, since I had never seen them in real life before, was seeing the baby African elephants. They were running around and playing together - so fun! We also saw some amazing sealife and marine animals at the aquarium including penguins, sting rays, sea dragons (super cool - one is pictured below), jellyfish, and sea otters! If you'd like to see more photos from our trip to the zoo, you can view them here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=62450&l=753c1&id=648415963

Buffalo Zoo

We love zoos. Today the kids and I took a day trip to the Buffalo Zoo with my parents. Ever since our trip to Michigan when we mentioned it, Riley has been asking to go! So far we have been to our Seneca Park Zoo, the Erie Zoo, the Cincinnati Zoo, the Cleveland Zoo, the Milwaukee Zoo, and now the Buffalo Zoo. This zoo wasn't overly impressive compared to others we have been to, but there were quite a few animals we hadn't seen before and it was a nice little day trip. We even tried to go to Niagara Falls (we drove home along the lake instead of the thruway, so it was on the way), but made it to the parking area and even saw the mist from the falls when it started raining. Oh well, that will be for another day! If you'd like to see all the photos from the trip today you can visit our album gallery here: http://vanheukelum.shutterfly.com/

Next zoo we plan to visit...the Pittsburgh Zoo when we visit Uncle Josh in the fall!