Zoo Trip #2...

We took another trip to the zoo this week, this time with Daddy. We have had our tickets for quite some time and we needed to use them before the end of July, and we couldn't have picked a better day. There was a good chance of rain yesterday but right when we pulled into the parking lot, the rain stopped. It turned out to be a partly cloudy day, which was great.

This time around we got to see many more animals, and it was almost like we had the zoo to ourselves, which was allowed us to let Ava walk around and not ride in her stroller the entire time. We spent about two hours walking around and enjoying what the zoo had to offer, and headed out right before the crowds arrived.

Ava is the height of a newborn African Elephant....

thankfully she doesn't weight 247 lbs like Baby Zuri

again, much more interested in the water than the animals

Ava liked the monkeys

We spent a lot of time at the Aquarium, as this was once again, Ava's favorite part. She loves "wawers" and anything to do with it.

we got lucky, the polar bears were playing in the water!

We had some extra time so we let Ava go down the "big" (small) slide a couple of times.

and of course we had to try out the wobbley bridge again

One last quick hop through the kangaroo pen and we were done. We had a wonderful time and it was great that Nathan could be with us. Ava sure is a Daddy's girl and she loves it when he is able to go places with us.

Uh oh...

This little tag appeared on our blog today.... looks like we'll be changing things up again. Bummer, we liked this background!

BIG birthday...

The boxes arrived last week...



construction began on Friday...



there were many pieces...


it continued on Saturday...

until we finally had this:

Happy (early) Birthday Ava!!!!!

Man, was she excited. Poor Joshua actually got to see the play set before Ava did and he was begging to "go outside!" Finally, once Ava was up from her nap, we let her loose. Joshua joined her shortly thereafter.

Hopefully Ava won't think birthdays get bigger each year, because we definitely can't outdo this. Shoot, this isn't even a gift from us, it's from PawPaw and Mimi. This play set has been in the works for a while, and we're glad it's finally here. This is the only play set in the entire neighborhood, so hopefully we won't have problems with the bigger neighborhood kids. We actually had to get clearance from the HOA to even put it up. But it will bring hours of entertainment for Ava and her friends.


...............................................

Our little girl is growing up fast, and this second year has flown by. It really is hard to believe that she will be 2 in a little over a month. Here are some pictures of our growing girl.

she loves to play with blankets

eating a "snackless" of fruitloops

she'd have stickers and tattoos all over

her body if we had enough

A few days ago I walked into the bathroom to see this:

(Oh my gosh! Is my baby really a big girl now?)

washing her hands... or just playing in the water :o)

no more high chair, just a booster seat, and it's not even buckled... she'll be 18 and off to college before we know it!