Zoo, Pools and Booms

Our Fourth of July weekend with our friends, Ben & Katie, was fantastic!  We had a 9 hour drive to their house.  On the way down Mally only slept for an hour!!  I thought she would sleep more and was shocked when she only took a short nap.  She did very well considering being stuck in a 5-point harness car seat.  During the last hour of the trip (it was way past her bedtime) she started to have enough and cried… for two minutes and then fell asleep.  : )

Mally begging for a bite of Katie’s graham cracker.

Katie couldn’t resist and shared a bite!

But it wasn’t a free bite!  She had to give kisses!  : )

Lily showed off her moves!  She got up on her hands and knees and pushed herself backwards!

Katie and I had to get ourselves a pedicure to start off our vacation.  Lily immediately noticed my pretty toes after she woke up from her nap!

The guys hit up the golf course.  It was funny to have these guys back together – we forgot how they get distracted.  We sent them to the store for cherry pie filling – and 2 hours later they finally came home.  Something about stopping to buy beer glasses and some St. Louis beer to bring back home.  If you bought a glass of beer there and drank it – the glass was cheaper.  : ) 

We went to the St. Louis Zoo on Saturday.  It was 95 degrees and 100% humidity.  We went early in the morning, but it was still screaming hot.

We made the mistake and woke up Mallory when we got there to see the animals.  It was her first trip to the zoo – I didn’t want her to miss it.

We went to the penguin house – which was COLD.  It felt great!!

The girls waiting on their daddies.  I think they were distracted by some birds… storks, I believe.  We don’t ask.  We just wait patiently.

Waiting in line to ride the carousal!!

She looks so grown up in this picture!  It actually scared her and she cried.  I sat on it with her and then she liked it – except I got yelled at and had to get off and she cried again.  Only one rider at a time.

Lily thought it was prime time for a little thumb sucking. 

  Checking out the monkeys.

Giraffes!  I won’t lie.  I posed this picture!  I made sure she had her giraffe when Jesse took her to see it up close.

But she really watched the giraffe walked away.

We skipped a chunk of the zoo and headed home.  The girls were sleepy and hungry and it was HOT!  Actually it was just my girl who was starting to turn into Monster Mally… and maybe I was turning into Monster Mommy… not sure which…  ; )

Sunday was just as hot, if not hotter.  We decided to spend the afternoon at the pool.

Check out those rolls!  Oh goodness!  She even has roll tan lines!!

Hey look!  I put her swim suit on right this time!  : )

Thank goodness for Daddy because I did not want to run in this sprinkler.  Mally loved it!  She giggled!

Beautiful Katie and Lily cooling off while we wait for the daddies again!  They got distracted by the water slide! 

Shortly after this picture Katie & Lily came back to the chairs by us.  Katie scooped up Lily and Lily threw-up (not spit-up – it was throw-up!!) directly into Katie’s mouth!  Katie spit it out on the concrete and waved her arms saying “I’m going to loose it!  I’m going to loose it!”  She held her breathe.  Closed her eyes.  The whole time I’m dying with laughter.  I couldn’t stop.  Yet, I couldn’t help her because I had Mally in my arms.  I’m sorry Katie!  That was not a very nice friend to just laugh (uncontrollably) at you.  Again, I’m so sorry!

It was our last night in St. Louis and we had to decide… keep the girls up way past their bed time, sit in humidity, heat and bugs, watch a show, fight traffic, get home late  –or-  put the girls to bed on time and do our own fire work show.  We picked bed times!! 

We sent the guys to go buy fireworks and they bought fireworks!!  We had quite the show! 

Smoke bombs & spinners.

Roman candles.  Also known as:  Adult Sparklers.

Sparklers.

They even bought ‘real’ fireworks!

The guys had tons of fun shooting off the fireworks and putting on a show for us.  They even had a grand finale for us.

 

On our drive home we experienced our first ever flat tire along the interstate.  Two hours into the trip back, Mally was getting fussy.  All my tricks weren’t working – so my next trick was change the diaper.  : )  We pulled off and changed her diaper on the tail gate on an exit ramp.  Get back on the interstate – get back up to speed – a truck beside us is giving us the signal of flat tire.  Then Jesse noticed his low tire pressure light on the dash – looked in his mirror and saw the flat tire.  We limped it to the side of the road.  Decided we didn’t want to be on the side of the road changing a tire with crazy texting drivers – we limped it to the exit and changed the tire there.  Jesse had us back on the road within 30 minutes.

We had a fantastic time with our friends and can’t wait to do it again next summer!!!  Miss you already friends!