A Visit from Grandpa!

We love it when people come to visit us and it was really great having my dad in town for a few days this past week. He is the best Dad and a really great Grandpa. My kids just love him and had been talking for the past month about how excited they were for Grandpa to come visit. We filled our days with Qwirkle, Beatles Rock Band, celebrating St. Patrick's day, enjoying the weather by eating meals on the back porch a couple times, visiting the zoo, playing at the park, shopping at some favorite stores ;), and going on a little hike.

On the day we went to the zoo it was really quite hot! The high that day was 88 or something - I was definitely glad we wore capris and shorts and lathered on the sunblock. But it was a great day to be at the zoo and we had a memorable time...









peering over the bridge at the turtles

taking a peek at a tarantula... I kept a safe distance



ooo... a kimodo dragon















Dad posed this pic while at the zoo, pretending that I had bought a jeep and then totaled it in the mud... not sure I'd be smiling so much though

The girls got to ride a camel! They LOVED it! Here's a video...



So it was a fun outing... and fun outings usually lead to this...


In the evenings we played Rock Band... and we really took it seriously...


Even though we've been in our house for 9 months now, we are still exploring our neighborhood and discovering new things. A friend told me that there is a great little hike right within the community - the trailhead is just a 10 minute walk from our house! Pretty awesome! I feel lame that I didn't know about it till now. We took the the shorter 'scenic overlook' route of the trail and it ended up being perfect for the kids and plenty rewarding with the view.










The park is near the trailhead too, so after our hiking adventure we played for a while...






Thanks for coming dad! We love you. Lucky for us, my sister, Sarah, is coming to visit us soon too, so there is even more fun to come. Yay! I sure do love my family.