All Grown Up

Just a quick congratulations to Kaden.  Not only is he graduating Kindergarten this week, but he just recently lost his front tooth.  I love seeing that gaping hole in his smile!

I Love Mother's Day

Most of you probably know that I have a serious addiction to entering contests.  I never pay money or anything, but the spam in my email account can attest to the fact that I enter nearly every contest I come across.  In case you were wondering: No.  I didn't win the hgtv dreamhome this year, but I'm gearing up for the next one!

You may be asking yourself what this has to do with Mother's Day.  Well I'll tell you.  I finally won something!  I won an overnight stay at a resort, a $200 gift card and two 4 day 3 night getaways to other sister resorts.  Can I get a Woot Woot?!

For Mother's Day we took the kids to Virginia for the overnighter.  We had a lot of fun.  Kimball and I love to play, but I think this was the first getaway we've been on with just our family for no other reason than to getaway!  The resort offered a lot of fun activities, but since these things all cost extra and we were very determined to keep our free night free we spent the whole time at the pool.

We did have to let a saleswoman show us around for an hour and a half to try and convince us to buy a timeshare, but it was worth the price.

I had a great Mother's Day!  No cooking, no cleaning, and for the most part the kids were happy.  When we got home that evening I was even bestowed with gifts the kids had made: Tissue paper flowers and a bead necklace with a J for Jocilyn on it.  I love my kiddos!

A big thanks to Kimball too.  He was a great sport changing all diapers and taking care of every crisis before I had to step in.  Thanks Babe!  I love you!

National Zoo

Okei-Dokie!  Getting closer to present day!  Our next adventure in the line up was to the National Zoo.  This may have been the kids favorite day so far, but its hard to tell.  Kimball and I being the amazing planners that we are decided on a whim to head to the zoo.  It was overcast and drizzly with a 60% chance of rain, so we knew it would either be a really terrible decision or we were completely brilliant.  Turns out we were brilliant!  Who knew?

The threat of rain frightened away most of the crowds that would normally be there on a Saturday, the animals were incredibly active, and best of all IT DIDN'T RAIN!!  This was seriously the best experience at a zoo I can remember.

I thought the zoo itself was pretty good.  I mean seriously...they have panda bears!  Who doesn't love panda's?  It was especially cool to see all the animals walking around when they usually just sit in a corner.  The panda was walking laps and we even caught a wrestling match between of couple of the lions.

In case you couldn't tell Kaden is hamming it up pretending to be the panda's latest kill.  I know he could do it, but its hard to imagine something so cute and cuddly wanting to take your face off.

You may ask me why on earth I have pictures of peacocks on here when we saw all these other cool animals, but I really think the peacocks stole the show.  Two of these guys were having a very serious stand-off while we were walking through the bird exhibit.  They were hopping all over the place trying to peck at the other one.  They even blocked our path for about five minutes having their little shoot out.  Kaden of course thought it was awesome and even took advantage of the close proximity by petting one of the birds.  I promise I tried to stop him, but seeing as he still has all appendages it probably worked out for the best.

We've had one other adventure to the zoo so far and I think Kimball and I have figured out all the tricks for the best way to do it.  So should anyone feel like a visit to D.C. and want to see something other than monuments we'd be happy to be your zoo guides.  Just not this weekend, Kimball and I need a little brake from the animals as awesome as they are.