For my animal lovers

The boys have always loved animals.  In fact, they even have a barn with lots of animals to play with at home.  Ellis was a huge fan of horses for the longest time and if you ask him what sound an elephant makes, you might want to brace yourself (and plug your ears).  So, although we've taken our share of trips to the Detroit Zoo this summer, we had to hit up the Toledo Zoo - closest home of (live) elephants that I know of!

Saturday, the four of us and Grandma Bush packed some things up and headed to the Toledo Zoo.  Once we got there, it was no surprise when the boys quickly spotted some stuffed animals.  They've never really been in to stuffed animals, but have picked them up more often after being at the Reaves and seeing the big selection they have.  So Grandma treated them each to an animal of their choice!

We saw the giraffes and horses, although I seem to favor the exhibits at the Detroit Zoo as far as getting good shots of them.

Can't forget the wolves too - or should I say "white dogs".

Next we headed to the other side of the zoo and our first stop was the flamingoes.

Our first site of an elephant was this statue, but hey, they don't pass up a good statue to climb on.

Next the penguins.  They were awesome too, especially watching them dive in and swim - but boy did they stink!

Then off to the monkeys.  I probably could have stood here for half the day.  They were so entertaining and one even got right in front of Ellis and Rosie and swung back in forth in front of them.  It was awesome.  

Then some other primates.

Then we found these cute little masks hanging that the kids could stand behind.  They loved it!

Then the ungodly hot reptile house...

..and finally the elephants (cue in Ellis' best elephant sound)

A stop at the hippos (and the hippo statues).  I was totally bummed, but right when we went to turn around to leave the exhibit, one hippo stuck his head out of the water and opened his mouth real big.  It was awesome, but I wasn't fast enough to get the picture.  Damn!

Last but not least, some BIG CATS!

And another family photo at a statue (that I saw said "DO NOT CLIMB ON", after we took the picture - oops)

Then it was time to head home.  Logan had been getting a bit cranky for probably the last 30 minutes, so we thought we'd head out before all hell broke loose.  All in all, we all had a great time.  Logan fell asleep within 5 minutes of leaving and Ellis fell asleep after a quick snack, sleeping the whole way home with their new animals never leaving their little grip.

I'm so glad we were able to check that fun off the bucket list this summer.  As for us, we are spending my last week off for summer with a mix of fun and relaxation.  Today, despite the rain, we've kept busy inside and have had an awesome day.

Summer Vacation Week(end) #1

We've had a whole lotta fun around here since last Wednesday.  Once I (we) decided not to pursue potty training, I text Nicole to set up a zoo trip.  They weren't busy on Thursday, so off we went.

I have never personally been in the butterfly house, so that was awesome to see:

Other fun:

Hard to see, but they were checking out a turtle.

Poor Nicole and I tried so hard to get a picture with our kids but they were having nothing of it, so this was the best we could get!

Logan loved pushing the stroller, which Ellis was okay with - well until Ellis wanted to push and Logan didn't want to give it up.

Friday, we had a playdate scheduled.  I haven't seen Caryn (and her boys) in forever and although I've seen Sheila and her kiddos somewhat recently, it was good to finally get together and hang out - let the kids play and catch up on things going on with each other.

The boys fell asleep on the 10-ish minute drive home, so I hung out reading in the garage in order to let them sleep a bit.  I totally wish they were the type of kids that would either stay asleep or fall back asleep easily when transferred from the car to their bed.  No such luck though, but they did sleep a good 45 minutes, which I hoped would hold them over since we had plans that night.  After dinner, we took the kids to a festival in Oxford.  There was a carnival going on in one of the parks and at dusk, they were having fireworks.  We got there at a decent time that the kids had time to play at the playground, walk around the carnival in awe of the rides (they especially liked the motorcycle ride and of course the carousel), ride the carousel, and hang out to have a snack before fireworks.  During my packing for the night, I forgot bug spray, so for about 10 minutes before the fireworks, we hung out in the car to prevent too many bug bites.  We actually had a good view from the car, so we just watched them in there (plus being in the car dampened the loudness of the fireworks and all the car alarms going off around us).  Ellis shared lots of "wow"'s and Logan liked identifying all the colors he saw.  All in all, they seemed to enjoy it.  We did a great job wearing them out too because less than 5 minutes after we left, they were both passed out!

"Hey mom, can we ride this one?!?"

Me and Logan

Carousel selfie!

Not quite tall enough for this ride, and my luck they would freak out the second they realized we couldn't ride it with them.  For now, they enjoyed watching it go, though.

Eating a snack, watching the carousel, and listening to some live music.  It doesn't get better than this!!!

Pre-fireworks selfie!

Saturday, I went to my moms and scrapbooked with her and Nicole.  Not gonna lie - although I started out strong, we had a couple good conversations that kept me talking more than scrapbooking (surprise, surprise huh?), but I did get a little bit done.  It was a good start in my pursuit to getting caught up this summer.

On Sunday, after the boys napped, we headed up to our local bowling alley to cash in some coupons for our free summer bowling.  The kids loved it although I think it was a bit confusing for them to see Troy and I bowl normally while they used the ramp to get the ball down the lane.  A couple times Logan wanted to throw it himself which ended up as a loud thump on the lane, which clearly went no more than 10 feet before rolling back to the beginning of the lane.  They seemed to like fact of playing glow-in-the-dark bowling though!

Ellis making sure that we were watching him.

Logan making sure to have his ball ready to go

Logan is more excited to push his ball down the ramp than whether or not any pins fall.  

Today we hung out at home.  We've had some air conditioning issues so we had a guy come out and refill our refrigerant.  Yay for a cooler house - boo for another unexpected expense.  Lots of outside and inside play though - bike rides, sandbox, water table, pool, swing set, trains, cars, puzzles - yup, we stayed busy!  Oh, and then there was the interesting words that Ellis said right as we were about to eat.  Hmm...I wonder what it was?!?  I will keep you hanging on that one - perhaps he will say it again and then I can share.  I don't want to get ahead of myself.

And a few of our indoor activities:

A busy bag activity I've had for a while.  Ellis can obviously match colors easily, but watching him try to use the clothespins was a bit nerve wracking.  I didn't realize how hard it would be to really watch your kid struggle without helping.  He was able to open the clothespin with no problem but trying to keep it open long enough to attach it to a paper plate really drove him nuts.  There were even a few thrown clothespins, but he did do it very well, multiple times without my help.  Good work Ellis!

I've been working with them to draw circles and straight lines (precursor to letter formation) and when Logan was doing that here, he said "mama - an elephant".  And in a weird way, I think I do see a little bit of an elephant in there! 

This week we have a play date scheduled tomorrow with a few days of nothing major planned the rest of the week before a fun weekend ahead.  Happy July everyone!