The Zoo Part 1

 On our "vacation" that we took recently, we stayed with some friends near Richmond, Virginia.  I had been wanting to take Hannah Kate to the zoo, so when I pulled up the Richmond Zoo homepage and saw a picture of a family (with a little baby Hannah Kate's age) feeding a GIRAFFE........I was sold!  First, we saw some birds, which was handy since Hannah Kate likes birds and can sign and say bird (she's signing bird her way in the top picture).  Then, we saw some monkeys, lemurs, other animals, I don't really remember what all because after that we saw GIRAFFES!!!

 I seriously almost cried when I saw them and knew we were taking Hannah Kate to them.  I was a little excited. :)  When Wesley saw them from a distance, he said, "Hannah Kate, Mama's about to start running." Ha ha....I didn't run, but I may have walked very fast!

I bought a $2 cup of giraffe food from the people concession stand and it was worth every penny!

 SOOOOOO FUN!  I asked a random lady to take our picture and this was exactly what I had envisioned. :)

This was a little bit of a picture overload, so I'll save the rest of the zoo pictures for another post!

Thai ain't my first rodeo.

Oh wait. Yes it is.
We took Hannah Kate to a rodeo that was in town this weekend. I said it was either going to be awesome or a train wreck because it started at 8pm. At first, she was very scared & we figured out that it was the announcer (he was loud & slightly obnoxious). Once we got her away from the speakers, she did better. She liked the animals & even neighed at the horses. She clapped & said yay when the crowd clapped too. We left before the barrel racing & bull riding because it was 10pm. It left a lot to be desired as far as rodeos go, but Hannah Kate enjoyed it so it was a win.

I hope these pictures will post in order. Thursday was the funeral for Cleveland Police Officer Justin Maples. The CPD asked people to line the streets for the processional, so we went to support the Maples family, our friend Cody (who is a police officer), & the other officers. We got there 2 hours before the processional came by because we wanted to get there a little early & they were a little later than they had planned. We met 3 other moms & their kids from our church family. Hannah Kate was pretty patient to have been in the hot outside for 2 hours. Thankfully, I had sunscreen in our bag & the place where we were had a covered porch & porch swings. Even though it was hot & long, I'm glad we were there. Our fervent prayers are with the Maples family-especially his wife & 3 boys under the age of 5.

Phone pictures

Here are some pictures from the past week.

Project manager

Hannah Kate was the project manager for our deck. She wanted to make sure Papa & Daddy were doing it right.

Trip

We had an awesome trip but are glad to be home. Hannah Kate slept all night with not a peep until 730 then she went back to sleep til 830. Every night we were gone she was up 5-10 times crying. Glad we are hopefully back to normal!! Now we are cleaning & getting ready for the Andrews to get here!!

Here are some phone pictures from our trip.

Vera

One of my former students gave Hannah Kate her first Vera Bradley purse. She kept putting it on her arm!