Busy, Fun Weekend

This weekend we finally got some warm sunshine back in Nor Cal after having been stuck in the rain for several weeks on end, so we made sure to take full advantage of the opportunity to be outdoors. On Saturday we took the boys to Folsom for the morning and went to the zoo, to the park, and then to the Nimbus fish hatchery. Sawyer and Mitch went on a train ride at the zoo, but Sutton immediately deemed the train "loud choo-choo train" and wouldn't even get near it. I ended up having to hold him off over near the ball fields while he cried the entire time because he wanted his Daddy, but he didn't want anything to do with the train. Sawyer, of course, loved the train ride and said it was "sooooo fun" and "my favorite part" of the day.






The boys managed to zoom through the zoo in about 20 minutes time. Sawyer barely paused to look at the animals, just too eager to see what was in the next cage. He impressively later remembered almost every animal that we saw, even though he didn't spend much time with them. Sutton liked the sleeping tiger, and Sawyer later said that was his favorite animal at the zoo too. Most of the animals were sleeping, but we did manage to get up close and personal with a few deer, some incredible looking peacocks and a ton of roosters.

Checking out the "Mommy and Daddy deer" (which were both female)

This is how Sutton viewed the zoo the entire time - my arms are super sore today!

Brightly colored peacocks in the sun

After we left the zoo area, we grabbed some lunch from the snack bar and played in the park for awhile. Sutton went over to play on the little kid playground, but Sawyer stayed at the big playground with the older kids. I watched him attack some new challenges like the climbing ropes and a rock climbing wall to get to the tallest slide, and I was really impressed at how easily he was able to do it - and bravely too!

The ropes are higher than the picture makes it seem since I cut off the bottom of them in the picture!

He's still working on cutting his 2-year molars...he's chewing on everything these days!

"Look at me! I'm way up here!"

After we left the park we headed back towards home, and decided on a spur-of-the-moment stop at the fish hatchery. The boys went crazy looking at thousands of fish (salmon and steelhead) right under their noses. We got to feed the fish a little bit of food, which the boys thought was great and probably would have gladly spent the rest of the day doing. Sawyer & Sutton liked looking at the bigger fish because they splash around in the tanks more than the little fish, and it kept getting the boys wet. The boys decided that the big ones were called "splashy fish."

Mesmerized by the thousands of fish below them

This kid kept wanting to climb in and go swimming with the fishes, naturally!

On Sunday we had planned on finishing up our planter boxes for the vegetable garden and spending the day working on our yard, but yesterday we got invited to the neighbor twins' impromptu 4th birthday party and went off to Walmart this morning in search of a present (and lots of groceries) instead. The time change really threw us off, and by the time we got home we were already late for the birthday party. Luckily it was just a couple of houses away! The twins' mom had rented a bounce house, so all the neighborhood kids were busy bouncing away. Sutton never wants to go into a bounce house, so we hung out on the side and watched for awhile before heading home to have nap time.

When we woke up two hours later (yes, I napped too...I'm still really sick!) Mitch and Sawyer were still gone at the party so we wandered back down the street and found all the kids and the parents having a pizza dinner. Nice! I love it when I unexpectedly don't have to make dinner! Sutton and I stayed for awhile while he managed to scarf down a ton of pizza, and Sawyer jumped in the bounce house some more. Mitch said that he never stopped bouncing all afternoon, even when the other kids took breaks! Needless to say, this was him about an hour after we got home...

He completely fell asleep on the couch, and didn't wake up for anything (trust me, Sutton was trying his hardest to make him wake up too!). Even with the time change today both of the kids were in bed and sleeping at 8:00. I'd call that a perfect ending to a perfect weekend :)