21 Months and a Trip to the Zoo!

This past weekend aunt Brenda came to MN for a visit. She stayed with her friend Roxie Thursday and Friday night and spent the majority of Saturday and Saturday night with us. We hung out around the house and caught up while Carter took his nap and when he woke up we headed to the MN Zoo which is in Apple Valley (just about a 10 minute drive from our house). It was the perfect day to go to the zoo not too hot & not cold.

In the almost 5 years that Jordan and I have lived here we have never gone to the zoo and are kind of mad at ourselves for never going and especially not ever taking the Petersen family when they have been in town. The first animals we came upon were the monkeys and boy were they cute! We had to take Carter out of the stroller so he could see them (big mistake because then he did not want to go back in). We watched the monkeys for a couple of minutes and decided to heard over to the farm area. We felt that Carter would enjoy this the most as he would be able to be up close and personal with the goats, pigs, horses, bunnies, chicks, and sheep. On our walk we came across the bear exhibit and that was so fun to watch as one of the bears was in the water swimming right up to the glass that we were touching. We checked out the prairie dogs on the way to the barn too and Carter loved those.

We took a brief tractor ride over to the barn. This was great because tractor is one of Carter’s favorite words right now so it was fun to see his reaction when the tractor was pulling us. When we arrived at the farm we went over and feed the goats (I was very nervous about this and Jordan and Brenda got a kick out of making fun of me being so scared of the goats). It was fun to see how excited Carter was. We also checked out the other farm animals. They had a couple of bunnies in cages and Carter really liked this is was right up on the cage yelling bunny and talking to them. I think he enjoyed it because we have several rabbits that frequent our yard and they of course don’t let you come anywhere near them . We stared working our way back and checked out the lions and cheetahs, and the bears again. We even were able to see some of the underwater exhibits but were disappointed because the dolphins were put away for the day. Carter had a blast and I know we all did watching Carter have so much fun.

Carter’s new thing this week is telling us the sounds that different animals make (can we say ADORABLE). He knows the correct sounds for the following: dog, cat, cow, pig, monkey, and lion. He also loves pointing out airplanes when we are on our walks and can actually say the word ‘airplane’ perfect. He will hear the airplane first and say airplane, airplane and point up to the sky,

We are headed back to Davenport this weekend for my parents housewarming party and are looking forward to seeing Rich and Jenn who will be in town from Florida as well as celebrating Father’s day!

Enjoy the pictures!

5 Years of Marriage and 20 1/2 Months

It looks like things are not slowing down anytime soon in our house. We just had another jammed packed weekend and looking ahead in the month of June it is not slowing down and July and August look crazy too!

Jordan and I celebrated 5 years of marriage on May 27th and we were back in Davenport. We had an AMAZING night and weekend. We started the day off by having a 90 minute couples massage at spa Luce in the Blackhawk Hotel. After the massages we checked into our room at the Blackhawk and when we walked in I was surprised with 24 red roses and a bottle of champagne and jewelry! I am a spoiled girl. We had a romantic dinner at Woodfire and decided to met our good friends Cara and Jim at the martini/bowling alley bar at the Blackhawk (which was awesome) we went on to have a fun filled night with the VanAckers. Thanks for babysitting mom and dad.

Saturday we recovered and hung out at my parents BEAUTIFUL new house. It has been a major renovation and the final outcome is amazing. My mom should have been an interior designer they did not skimp on anything. We are looking forward to hanging and making many new memories at their new home. We went to dinner with the Endo’s Saturday night and met up with other friends afterwards for drinks.

Sunday we had a get together with family at the Petersen house and celebrated our anniversary, Mollie and Karl’s 7th, and Brenda and Dave’s 3rd anniversary. Carter of course had a blast hanging out with his cousins and can say – KK, Mymy, and Lil. Overall, it was a great weekend. We are looking forward to being back next weekend for my parents housewarming party! Plus Jenn and Rich will be in town.

Carter had his last swimming lesson this past weekend and we most likely will sign him up for more lessons this Fall. We are just too busy this Summer and I know we will be going to the pool when we can. Carter continues to pick up new words on a daily basis. He is really good at repeating words. His new fav is ‘ready, set, go’. He also can count to 3 (it’s a start right) and we work every day with him on his ABC’s and reading to him. On the way to daycare we drive by cows and horses (I swear we don’t live in the country) and I point them out to him and he says moo and horse. He also likes to point to the sky and say airplane. His favorite movie is Cars and he really is obsessed… he will say McQueen, McQueen (main character in the movie) and he will grab your hand and pull you downstairs and say movie, movie. He really is a smart little guy. We were very impressed with his memory too. As when we were back in Davenport he ran over to a closet at my sister’s house where she keeps the toy vacuum and when he ran over to the door he said vacuum , vacuum. When he was at Grandpa and Grandma Mary’s house he ran over to where they keep their cats food and wanted to feed the cat. ADORABLE.

We were not good at taking pictures and need to start getting better at that! I promise pictrues of the cousins and Carter next time take care!