Memorial Day - More Pictures

I prematurely published my previous Memorial Day post. I looked in my phone today and realized that I had forgotten a bunch of cute pictures. So of course I have to post them:)

Adalyn and Cayden having fun with their new friends.

On Monday at the picnic, while the boys were playing baseball my cousin Julia took all of the younger girls for a walk in the park. She got a ton of precious pictures of the girls together.

 Seriously. I love that Adalyn just picked up and played with my cousins' girls even though she only sees them about twice a year. Can you tell how much she loved them?

My kids love horsey rides from my dad. Every child in our extended family has loved horsey rides from my dad:) He's quite known for them. Of course both kids wanted a horsey ride at the same time so of course he obliged.

 One last picture before we had to say goodbye.

Memorial Day Weekend

It has taken me a sweet forever to find the time and energy to write a post about the rest of Memorial Day weekend! Such is life these days... sigh. After we spent the day at the Zoo on Friday, we decided to just hang around my parents' house on Saturday and relax and let the kids play outside. They love having 100% of Nana and Papa's attention!

My parents love working in their yard and their yard and gardens are beautiful so playing outside is a treat. We could only wish we had a yard half that amazing. (Ours is a steep hill in the back.) They of course had to spoil the kids with toys. They gave Adalyn a fun Princess bubble blower and Cayden a bubble blowing lawn mower. He was serious about it. Serious.

 This was precious. He really thought he was cutting the grass with Papa.

 The funny thing is that he preferred dragging it behind himself instead of pushing it in front so that the bubbles would blow.

My parents have a sweet family who lives next door. They have 3 boys ages 2, 4 and 6. The 4 year old and Adalyn hit it off. The mom let us know that Adalyn and Cayden were welcome to their swing set and tire swing any time. They LOVED it. The tire swing was hung from a super high limb so it was a smooth ride! During the weekend we spent a ton of time at this swing with Adalyn's new friends. The sweet little 4 year old boy left a picture of Adalyn and him riding the tire swing in my parent's mailbox the day after we left. He kept asking when we were coming back to visit. So sweet.

 The part that hit me was that I have pictures of Adalyn in a baby swing on this same tree limb from a Memorial Day past. Oh my heart. How are my kids big enough to be riding a tire swing already?

We also enjoyed my parents' back yard and their hammock. Of course Jonathan and I were trying to get some alone time...

 And then we were bombarded with these little balls of energy.

 Adalyn loves the hammock, but Cayden wasn't as fond of laying down for no reason. Ha!

After church on Sunday we spent the entire day at my aunt's pool and I didn't take my camera with us. Just believe me that we enjoyed the sun and water. And we learned that Adalyn has turned into even more of a fish than last summer! She loved jumping off the side and swimming all over the pool in her Puddle Jumper. She didn't want to leave!

Monday morning we woke bright and early to go to the park to enjoy family breakfast cooked by all of the men. The family all dresses in red, white and blue so of course Jonathan had to go overboard:)

 Adalyn had so much fun playing with my cousins' kids. 

 Of course Cayden wanted to keep up, so his big cousins were helpful in helping him up the stairs and down the slide.

 Catching up with my cousins! I wish we had more time to spend together. Of course I didn't get pictures of all of my other family that was at the picnic. I have a hard time remembering to get my camera out when I'm enjoying myself.

 Another part of our tradition is that there is always a baseball or softball game that happens. Jonathan got into it this year!

 Our breakfast cooks decked out in their USA hats and shirts.

 I love my family.

It's always so hard to visit my parents because each time we visit, it's harder to leave than the last! So glad we had an extended weekend to spend together. The kids were so sad to leave and so was I. I think we're ready for another visit:)

Memorial Day Weekend - Toledo Zoo

Each year for Memorial Day weekend we make the trip to my parents' house to spend time with them. My extended family always does a big breakfast cookout in a local park on Monday morning but other than that the weekend was completely open. We decided to spend Friday at the Zoo since we figured that it was a school day and there would be less people there. Unfortunately we didn't take into consideration all of the bazillion schools that would be taking field trips that day. Oh well. We still had a great time. We decided to rent a wagon this trip so we wouldn't have to travel with our big stroller and that was a really good decision!

The zoo was opening two new exhibits that day (which added to the amount of people there): the flamingo exhibit and the penguin exhibit. We started at the polar bears and then let the kids ride on the big carousel. All of the animals were actual animals in Africa (since that's the part of the zoo we were in) and the carousel was huge and we had a super long ride! Neither had ever ridden on a carousel and they were both fans! Jonathan stayed back to take pictures.

We went to check out all of the African animals next. It's pretty cool how they have this exhibit. All of the animals that would naturally be with each other in the wild are in the same exhibit: giraffes, zebras, ostriches and others. It's a very "natural" exhibit. The kids loved looking at the animals.

From there we had to go check out the new flamingo exhibit. Not that flamingos really do anything but they they are pretty fun to look at. 

 We were watching the flamingos stand on one leg and Adalyn started doing this. So stinkin cute!

Next we went to check out the elephants, hippos and rhinos. The hippos gave us a serious show. I've never seen them very active but they were in the water right next to the glass catching apples that the zoo keepers were throwing down to them. It was crazy to see right into their mouths! We also got to stand and watch the baby and mama elephant have their lunch. The baby elephant is so cute!

We saw a lot of other animals that we didn't take pictures of - the chimps, monkeys and gorillas were a favorite since they seemed to be putting on shows for the viewers and were right up next to the glass. The last exhibit we stopped at was the penguins. There was a line to get in since it was the opening day for it. But the line moved pretty quickly so we didn't mind waiting. And it was well worth the wait. It was the Penguin Walk and we were seriously walking through their exhibit. I mean if we reached out we could have touched them! And between the ropes Adalyn was nose to nose with them. (They had a zoo employee standing guard so people wouldn't reach out and touch them.) They aren't afraid of humans so they just hung out staring back at us standing in sprinkler water. They also could dive into the water and after you left the main area of the exhibit you could watch through windows to see them swim underwater. Since Jonathan's favorite animal is a penguin this was a favorite exhibit!

We had a full, fun day at the zoo and both kids were asleep on the way back to my parents' house. I know I'm biased since I grew up at this zoo (and had many of my birthday parties there too) but this zoo is seriously the nicest I have ever been to. Their exhibits are impressive and the kids enjoyed it so much. I loved how they would say hi and bye to each animal we came across. Even Cayden would talk to the animals like he thought they could understand him. So cute! Ok, so I guess it was proved and not just my bias since the weekend we went, the Toledo Zoo had just been named #1 in the country! Wow. We're lucky to have access to enjoy it whenever we're in town! Such fun memories with Nana and Papa.