While we were out of town for Lego KidsFest, we visited that city's zoo. The weather was perfect and it wasn't too crowded. First up, the carousel, where Anna chose a mountain lion and Noah found a giraffe to ride. Think Anna was excited?  ;)

A nice couple offered to take our picture, and even after telling jokes the lady couldn't get Noah to smile. He was crying because he wanted to leave the zoo and go back to the hotel so he could play Legos. Obsessed, I tell you. I still think he looks pretty cute here though.

A few feet away was the insect house, and he quickly forgot about Legos and got into these big magnifying glasses. Nathan took about 400 up close shots of really nasty bugs, but I'll spare you.

Around the corner was a butterfly and exotic bird house.

This little sweetie girl thought for sure butterflies would come down and land in her hands.

Whoa! Look how big gorilla hands and feet are!

Not amused.

Anna was pretty excited to go into this exhibit.

Especially after watching this cougar run and jump. The trainers were throwing out raw meat and that cat was leaping across rocks and running crazy fast to get the food. Anna was on cloud nine!

See? Even Noah joined in. Ferocious. Anna's flower shoes are seriously intimidating.  ;)

After this we watched Planet Earth Ice Worlds 4D in their theater. The kids liked the movie. They did NOT like the fact that the chairs vibrated and it misted water in your face during the storm scenes. Anna has declared no more 4D movies ever, but 3D is still okay. ;)

Bored manatees

Depressed bears.

A promise of ice cream had them running for the exit when the zoo started to close. It was such a fun day!

Indiana Jones, or as Noah calls him, Indian Jones. He has no clue who it is, and if you ask him he will tell you that he's just an Indian named Jones, hee.

At first I was the only one in this picture, but the kids took pity on me and joined in.

There were lots of Star Wars characters who's names I didn't know.

See Noah to the right?  :)

Noah didn't know who this was either, and I think he was a little afraid to stand under him. He asked me over and over whether this was a good guy or a bad guy.

These clear boxes were all around and had very detailed scenes inside. The kids could have looked at these all day, especially since little characters were hidden throughout.

There were also play areas with little towns and scenes set up. Yes, giraffey was there!

While Noah and Nathan played on one side, I took Anna over to the Lego Friends exhibit, or as Noah calls them, the girl Legos. I've shown them to her in the store before, but she's never been interested.

Probably because she couldn't see details like this:

It took her about two seconds to jump in and build a pony ranch. Now these are my kind of Legos. Look at that Lego hedgehog in the background! I had as much fun as Anna did.

There was also an area where you could build a race car and slide it down a ramp. Noah had a blast, but for some reason all of poor Anna's cars would slide sideways or flip over. That's her red car cutting in front of the boy next to her. Poor girl. Look at that sad face!

Next up was Noah's dream come true: Sitting in a massive pile of Legos. Millions of Legos. Legos for as far as the eye can see. Notice I wasn't wearing socks, ouch.

Eeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!

Nathan and Noah worked together to build a big tower, while Anna and I made a smaller house type building that she later said was a bank.

Once finished we took our creations and handed them over to be placed on this giant map of the USA. There were some seriously cool things in there!

We stayed for about 3.5 hours, until it closed. It was so fun to play with the kids and be creative with them. As much as we missed Ben, we knew hours in the stroller wouldn't be much fun for him, and we're so thankful to grandma and grandpa for keeping him overnight. In just a few years I'm sure he will want to go too, and Noah is already asking when the next one will be!



Love this toddler belly!

Love these too-big droopy shorts too.

Can you believe just two weeks ago they were making snow angels?!

This morning we had the irrigation guys come out and turn on our sprinkler system for the summer. We have never turned it on in all three years that we've lived here, but after Nathan reseeded the lawn (again), he wasn't interested in watching it burn up and die (again) this summer. Once it was turned on, we were impressed by how well the previous owners had it done. There are a ton of those little things that pop up! The irrigation guy told Nathan he was impressed with how many "zones" we had covered. Yet another thing that we never would have done, but we're glad the previous owners did!

The kids were so excited to put on their swim stuff and run around. Nathan was only setting them to go off for a few minutes at a time, and Noah kept yelling, "They all sunk back into the ground!". I was pretty amused by them myself, except when I kept getting accidentally sprayed.

Noah noticed they were hitting the swing set. Water slide! That first trip sent him flying off the end with a bump!

And all the while Ruby lounged in the shade thinking she was way too old for this nonsense.  ;)

When Anna jumped in the car after school last Thursday, she took off her coat, rolled down her window and yelled, "Woo! It's Spring Break!". Her school always has an earlier than average Spring break, and we've grown to love it because no one else is out of school yet. This means everything is easier, from grocery shopping to going on vacation. When asked what she wanted to do this week, her only request was to go to the ice cream shop near our house. But none of us expected to see this, just days after temperatures had been in the seventies.

After a super mild winter, it's actually been nice to have at least one round of snow. The snow boots I bought weren't a total waste after all!