Hogle Zoo

This past weekend my parents and Annie and Jason made a trip to Salt Lake. The real reason for the visit was for my mom to see a doctor at the Huntsman Cancer institute, but since they were in town and we live down in Utah now we decided to make a weekend of it and do some playing as well.

On Friday night, after my mom's doctor appointment, we were able to get our realtor to meet us at our house in Tooele so that everyone could see. Landon's mom, Diane, and his sister Renee were also in town visiting, so we had a big group out to see our home-to-be. After the visit at the house we headed back in to Salt Lake and had dinner at the Cracker Barrel.

On Saturday we planned a trip to Hogle Zoo with the Kunz side of the family. We met Annie and Jason and their girls and my mom and dad at the zoo and had a blast!

Trevor always loves spending time with Grandma and Grandpa. Here he is looking at the giraffes. (One of my kids favorite animals.)

Ella and Jaycee standing in front of the giraffe's as well.

Eve spent her first trip to Hogle Zoo in two ways. She was either sleeping....

...or getting packed by her Mama. She is a doll baby and makes us so excited for our own little girl to come.

We had to stop for a while and take a break after a while. We sat down at some tables and all got ice cream. Jaycee also found this inch worm that the kids played with. Jaycee got brave and put it on her arm first, and then her face.

Landon and Levi after a diaper change.

I needed proof that I was at the zoo as well. (The photographer never has pictures of themselves.) Sitting at the tables with my Mommy and Daddy. I sure do love them!

One of the symptoms of my mom's cancer is hot flashes. They come about every hour and they are really intense. (Far worse than her hot flashes with menopause she says.) My sweet Daddy bought her this spray bottle. It is battery operated and has a fan that helps cool you down as well as spraying the mist on you. We had a lot of fun spraying each other with it and getting us all cool. We also decided it would be a great thing for her to have on the boat this summer.

The kids really loved standing in front of this poster and seeing where they measured up with the gorillas. Ellen is the size of a toddler gorilla and Ellen is almost the size of an adult female.

I would have loved to get Levi in the picture with the Gorilla poster, but he had decided he was done sight seeing for a while and fell asleep in the stroller.

The zoo had a dinosaur exhibit going on throughout the park as well. They had robotic dinosaurs that were life sized with information about each one. The kids really loved them. We decided to get a picture of all of the kids on this dinosaur in a little play area. Again, Levi was still sleeping so he missed out.

Ellen, Trevor, Eve, and Jaycee

Eve then got sacrificed to the dinosaur for a meal. Surprisingly she did not cry at all while we put her in there. All those around were having a good laugh at this picture.

The highlight of the park for Trevor was the train ride we went on. We told him we got train tickets when we first got to the park and he tried to be patient while we looked at all of the animals. Finally, right before we left, he had had enough and insisted that we go on the train. Waiting in line just about killed him, but he loved being on the train.

Levi woke up right as we loaded the train. I am glad he didn't miss out on this one.

Really, it was a perfect afternoon with my family. The weather was just perfect, warm but not too hot, and the kids all got along really well. They loved getting to see the animals and of course spend time with their cousins. With all of the testing and bad news we were receiving about my mom's cancer, it was nice to take a break from it and just enjoy being with each other. Reminding ourselves that being happy and having fun is the best way to cope with such a tragedy.

That night we all went to dinner at Spaghetti Mamas and finished out the great day we had just had. The food was perfect and the environment was great. Best of all, the company was fabulous! I am so lucky to have such a great family that can pull together through tough times. I love you all, thanks for the fun this weekend!