Day Eight

We went our separate ways today divided by gender! The girls (my mom, sister and I) did what we do best...shopping while Oliver and Papa bummed around town doing a few errands and eating yummy food! Here is Papa and Oliver all ready for their big day out. It is like the first day of school....stand outside and smile for the camera. Such good sports! I gave my dad the camera and told him to document the day with pictures so that I could blog it later. Well, he managed to get two pictures. This one is of Oliver eating a sucker from the office ladies at my dad's work.

The second one is of Oliver trying to walk in my dad's shoes. Which direction does he want to go? Not so sure.My mom, sister and I all took a break from shopping to go out for a nice lunch! We ate on a gambling boat and then all spent a whomping $5.00 gambling. None of won anything but it is always fun to play the penny slots!!
My mom and I at lunch. We made a run to Target and Oliver insisted on pushing this wheelbarrow through the store.Catching a lightening bug off mommy's hand. When he picked it up, he didn't know what to do with it. It was his first lighting bug experience.He was having such a good time with his new baseball glove and ball. Grammy and Papa made a trip to Toys R Us earlier in the week and stocked up on fun toys for Oliver. Did I ever mention how spoiled he is?? The glove is really neat because it has velcro in it that makes the ball stick!Rewind a couple of hours earlier and you would see this image. My dad was outside with Oliver and everyone else was sleeping so I took the new puppy in the bathroom with me while I got ready. Well, about 2 minutes into my shower I see Callie joining me. She (a 2.5 lb puppy) managed to climb over the side wall of the tub and into the shower with me. Good thing she has lots of fluffy hair otherwise she may not be so cute!

Okay, I take that last comment back. She stayed in my suit case for about 2 hours tonight. Initially we had sent out a search party for her when realized that she was missing, but I found her in here comfortably sleeping. The funny this is that I had thrown clothes into the suitcase on top of her not knowing that she was sleeping. Or should I say hiding?

Grammy spoiled him with this choo choo pillow. When I came upstairs to remove the dog from the suitcase to take her out to potty, I found him snuggled like this. How cute!!

Day Six

We had such a exciting surprising day today. We went to the zoo with Grandma in the morning and then went to lunch with Grandma and Grammy at Culver's. That is another one of my favorite places to eat! Oliver took a nice long nap (thank goodness...it has been a few days since he had a good one). When he woke up went met up with all my family at dinner. I knew all of my family had planned to be there, but I was very surprised when they all had cards and presents and they were for me. My mom, dad and sister were VERY sneaky and had a surprise 30th birthday party for me! The funny thing is...I don't turn 30 until September so they really caught me off guard! After we left from dinner, we came back to my parents house and had a fun night playing games and talking.

This is Grandma and Oliver walking up to the first exhibit at the zoo. Grandma is pointing the way!

We saw lions....
and tigers.....and moving vehicles....oh my!!!

Oliver was far more interested in watching the trucks at the zoo than the animals. Camels....we were hoping they wouldn't spit at us!
They had a really neat petting zoo. Grandma took Oliver in to see the goats and he clung onto her like they were going to eat him up. He brought his legs up as far as they would go!

Oliver and Mommy! Can you tell there was a truck off to the side that he couldn't take his eyes off?

Oliver enjoyed feeding the fish. As soon as we threw a little piece of fish food in, they all swarmed the area. It was kind of gross!

Oliver is sitting in the seat where you have a perfect view of the monkeys.

SURPRISE!!!!


The staff comes out singing and carrying on if it is your birthday! Oliver was so excited, he was clapping along!

Christy and Jed were there to celebrate with me.

and so was Grandpa!

Mommy and Oliver. Ollie had so much "dippy dippy" on his face. Chips dipped in ranch dressing...MMMM!

This is what was left of the cake

Oliver and Hannah clapping for another person's birthday celebration!

Bath time with Grammy!

My camera battery pooped out in the middle of our zoo visit, but luckily Grandma had her camera. When I get pictures from her, I will post more. We have really good ones of the train ride through the zoo and the alligators!!!

Day Seven

One of our favorite traditions at my parents house is getting doughnuts early in the morning and all sitting around the kitchen indulging in a special treat. My dad used to wake my sister and I up and we would jump out of bed (with our hair a mess) get in the car and manage to be so excited for the one block trip the the supermarket to pick out our favorite one. We would put it in the box and most times the anticipation would just almost kill us as we always had to make a run to the back of the store to get a gallon of milk. As we got a little older you can imagine that we were almost being drug out of bed and then the times that we did get out of bed, we had to at least make our hair look half way presentable. Today, Papa started Oliver in on the tradition and took him and let him pick out his own doughnut!! They came back with the prized chocolate sprinkle doughnut!

Oliver with his choo choo pj's and Callie.Papa and Oliver are in the car and ready to go get the doughnuts!Silly Papa gave Oliver the entire box of doughnuts and we almost had none! Grammy was about 2 steps away, thankfully!Doughnut time!Uh-oh....Is that Oliver playing with Grammy's cards?We had a family reunion at a local park. Oliver enjoyed playing with the other kids.This is one of our family members dogs. Can you tell that Oliver really misses Sophie? He walked this dog around on its leash for quite some time. My grandma gave Oliver a little piggy bank with some pennies. He intently focused his attention as he placed each penny in the hole. Christy's friend works at a train station. He took us to see the trains up close. We have been talking to Oliver about going to see the trains for an entire week. We are in a parking lot nearby waiting for Christy and Jed to arrive to take us behind the scenes. He is so excited!!!Here we are up close to the trains and Oliver was so excited, HE SLEPT THE ENTIRE WAY THROUGH!!! It was so nice of Jed to take us on a special trip like that. Thank you!!!

Aunt Christy is getting a special treat from Grammy through the car window. This just shows you how silly she is!

This is a view of the new hospital that is being built! WHOA...it is huge!

Day Five

Thursday...is that what day it is? It seems that when you are on vacation, all the days blend together. Papa and Christy are keeping us on schedule since they have been working all week. Christy has been counting down the days until Friday (tomorrow) because she is done working for the summer. Oliver knows what day it is though...a work day for Aunt Christy! He and Callie are watching her get into her car to go to work this morning. I would have preferred to send her off to work from bed, but Oliver had other plans in store for me! These are the new shoes that we bought on our shopping trip yesterday. They were on sale (big shocker) and I had a coupon for an extra 30% off. I just love bargains!!
We ate lunch with the KING today.

Or was it the QUEEN?


Papa is changing his first diaper in 25 or so years. My mom and I were painting so he was in charge of Oliver. Luckily he got off easily this time. We'll have to make sure we save a good one for him sometime next week while he is off from work.

Oliver helped Papa with some serious yard work today. He enjoyed the mower so much.

This is a close up of one of the 6 hydrangea bushes that my parents have at their house. They are so gorgeous and make great center pieces at the dining room table. Fresh cut flowers in the house just make me so happy!

We went to Grandma and Grandpa's house for dinner tonight. They made the perfect summer dinner and we ate outside on the patio. The weather was wonderful and we shared time with family and friends. Look for pictures tomorrow from the zoo. We are picking Grandma up and taking her to see all the animals. We ate dinner with Marilyn, Connie, Great Grandma, Mike, Grandma and Grandpa. Look at all that wonderful food! Grandma is going to be angry with me for posting this picture since she didn't know that I was snapping it, but it is the only one I have with all the friends in the picture. Sorry!!!Is that another ear of corn? Can you tell we are in corn country! It is 100 times better here than back at home. The corn is actually yellow, not white! Aunt Christy and I went to see her "friend" play baseball tonight after Oliver went to sleep. If you look closely, he is number 14 and is up to bat! He hit the ball far into mid-right field and advanced runners!!! Go Jed!
Papa was mowing the grass and Oliver was having a blast running up and down the rows with him. I couldn't resist posting this. My parents have a fairly large yard so you can guarantee that he is going to be a great sleeper tonight!!

This second video is from a day or two ago, but it was just too funny to pass up. He really enjoys this little red car.