Yes, the zoo - but first: these sweet little friends. Last week, Tiffany and Hudson (14mo) met us at a park near our house. Always a treat!
How sweet is this smiler??
Crawling around, munching on leaves and looking cute.
Still pinching myself that Tiff lives here. It's always so refreshing any time we can get together.
On this occasion, Nolan and Hudson were mutually determined to drink exclusively from each others' sippy cups and eat the other's snacks. After a fair amount of scrambling, redirecting and correcting, Tiff and I finally decided to-heck-with-it and let the boys just have whatever they wanted -- wrong sippy cups and all. Glad she's so relaxed!
Thankful for you, Tiffany!
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The next morning, Nolan and I were invited to join a couple of new friends, Emily and Ashley, in going to the Phoenix zoo. This is the largest non-profit zoo in the US and located a mere 20 minutes from our house. Really a treat and a great way to pass a morning.
Our mutual friend Esther introduced us all. Emily and Ashley are both married to ortho residents, and it was fun to hang out with resident wives again!
Ashley (Victoria 2, Valentina 8mo) - me & Nolan - Emily (Olivia 3, Andrew 1)
Beautiful grounds -- especially for being located in the middle of the desert and following a record hot summer
We of course saw lots of animals, but it was pretty hot - and in an effort to keep all the kiddos happy, we breezed past most of the exhibits quickly, so I didn't snap many photos.
We did linger for a closer look at the orangutans -- docile as the poor, bored things appeared to be...
Love how the kids are right at eye level with the animals in this exhibit.
An herb garden. How exotic... (though part of me does wonder how they get those herbs to grow right out there in the scorching sun!)
Pausing for some refreshments - and Ashley grabs a kiss from Victoria
Had to get a few close-ups of these cute kids
Valentina - whose name was already chosen for her before she decided to be born on Valentine's Day!
Shy and pretty Victoria
Olivia was the big kid of the group - and she proved it with this sno-cone
And Andrew (fitting zoo t-shirt, dude!)
So cute.
I'm sure we'll be making a lot more visits to the zoo in the future.
Thanks, Emily, Ashley and crew for letting us join you!
love this and seeing your new friends. brace yourself for years to come of wanting the other kids sippy cup. no bigs when everyone is healthy. not so fun when you see your kid sucking on thekidwithgreenboogerspouringoutofhisnose's cup. also because i know you are smarter than a 5th grader...check out your non-prophet again...
ReplyDeleteSteph, that was a test and you passed! #proofreadingisforweaklings #bloggingatwarpspeed
ReplyDeleteSo fun! So glad we were able to hang out again :)
ReplyDeleteNolan's underwater monkey seems zoo appropriate as well! Perhaps in Jan when we are in Phoenix another trip to the zoo might be warranted!
ReplyDeleteLove that zoo! And so happy to hear you found yourself some resident wives with babes to hang with! It's good to have friends that you don't have to explain why you haven't talked to another adult human being all day long. And did you really spell non-profit non-prophet? I think I would have left it like that. :)
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