Gavin's first trip to the Louisville Zoo

Last Saturday morning Shawn and I picked up Gavin bright and early and we headed to Louisville to go the zoo and then do some shopping at the mall so Shawn could replace his shoe inserts and then have dinner at our favorite restaurant, the Cheesecake Factory.

Our ride over there started out with a first for Aunt Stace and ended with a first for Aunt Stace.  And both involved Gavin and having to go pee!  LOL!!  We had just got on the interstate at the Dale exit and were tooling down the road.  All of a sudden Gavin tells me he has to pee.  There aren't many exits between Dale and Louisville so I whip the car to the side of the road, go around to the passenger side, unbuckle Gavin, pull him out of the car and let him do his thing.  Of course the section of the road we are on has a slant to it, so as he's peeing, it's running back down the road towards us, so I'm trying to hold his pants off the ground, move him so he's not stepping in pee all the while he's still peeing.  And Uncle Shawn is sitting in the car saying, what are you doing, what are you doing!  LOL!!

After that situation, it was smooth sailing to the zoo.  The weather was perfect for the zoo.  It was overcast and cool.  I wore my jacket the entire day.  And the zoo wasn't very crowded at all.  We saw all the animals we wanted except for the elephants and they were already put up by the time we got to them.  We got to see the giraffe too, but he was in his cage :( Note to self:  take the path to the left ... you'll see the big animals first!

We only had two little melt downs that day.  One when he wanted a toy.  We told him we would get the toy, but not at that specific gift shop, we wanted to wait until we got to the one right before we were leaving the zoo.  So we had a few tears over that.  And then a little bit later when he was thirsty and wanted a drink and we didn't have anything.  So Uncle Shawn trekked back to a snack stand to get us a soda.  After that, the world was good!  I think he was tired and wore out more than anything :(

I don't know why, but I love this little picture of him getting a drink.  I think it's the backpack that makes me like it.  He's getting to be such a little man now.  He wore that backpack almost the entire day.  He wanted too.  I even had it loaded down with stuff, but he still wanted to wear it.

While we ate lunch and sat for a while, Gavin enjoyed playing on one of the playgrounds at the zoo.  They have a splash park there too that I thought we would partake in, but it was chilly for the day and they didn't have it running.  

This is where one of the melt downs took place.  

All was better once we had a soda to drink!

The tigers were one of my favorite exhibits at the zoo.  That big white barrel was his chew toy.  He had been chewing on it, then pushed it into the water and then a second later, he used his teeth to pull the barrel out of the water back onto the land to continue chewing on it.  That barrel was almost submerged with water too!  

I love these next three pictures.  He was laying in the grass all calm and I held my camera up to take his picture and he gave me the stare down and raised some.  Almost like he was going to lunge towards me.  

As you can see below, he got the toys he wanted.  I told him we would get them for him.  He also got a smashed penny from the zoo.  I don't even think we were out of the parking lot of the zoo and he was out.  He was this way for the next almost two hours while we drove to the mall and waited for a table at the Cheesecake Factory.  Shawn went into the malls and did his shopping while I sat in the car with Gavin while he slept.

My delicious piece of cheesecake that I had for breakfast the next day!

And of course the peeing situation on the way home.  We left Louisville around 9:30 Louisville time.  Gavin and I both went to the bathroom before we left the restaurant because I knew it was a two-hour drive home.  We hadn't been in the car that long at all when I hear "I have to go pee Stace".  What??  Are you kidding me!  We just went pee.  We are on a five-lane interstate with no shoulder to pull over on, and no exits with visible bathrooms for miles.  I told him to hold it as long as he could and we'd find a bathroom, and thought well if he has an accident, I'll just have to change his clothes and we'll move on.  As I'm pulling into the gas station, I hear "I already peed in my pants Stace".  I told him it was ok and we went into the bathroom to change. :(  Note to self:  don't let him have that much to drink before having to make a road trip and even when you think you are finished peeing in the bathroom, let's hang out just a few minutes longer and try again.

The rest of our adventures in Ft. Lauderdale

Friday night we went to dinner at Chima's Steakhouse.  It's another Brazilian restaurant and it was yummy!  I still think I like the Texas de Brazil better.

 

 

Saturday after we left Flamingo Gardens, we went to a little burger joint for lunch.  It was called Le Tub's.  I had wanted to go to Gilbert's, but someone on the fishing trip told Shawn about Le Tub's.  It was good.

Wouldn't it be fun to live on a palm tree lined street?

 



 

Here is our little rental car.  It was a Chevy Cruz.  It WAS little!

 

The view off our balcony at night.

 

Saturday evening on our way out to the pool we saw a cruise ship go by!

Brrr...it was cold out there in the evening when you were wet out of the pool!

 

The weekend we were in Ft. Lauderdale, they were having the Rock the City Tortuga Music Fest.  From our resort, we could hear some of the concert and see all the boats out listening to the music.

 

Yeah, I'm sunburned!

 

 

A Day of Playground Fun...Super Fun Aunt/Nephew Day!

I had a super fun day of fun planned at Reid's Orchard in Owensboro, Kentucky on Saturday with Gavin, however the rain decided to put a damper on my fun.  Of course as soon as I paid the $5 to get into the play area, that's when the rain started.  It was just a sprinkle at first, but quickly turned into a bit more.  So with camera under my jacket, I quickly searched out some shelter for me us.  Gavin didn't mind the rain; Aunt Stacey not so much. 

 

 

As you can see in the picture below, Gavin was out playing in the rain and Aunt Stace was hunkered down in the corn crib.  I called for him a few times to come in from the rain, but he wasn't budging...

 

...then I told him there was a big sandbox play thing in here and he came a running!

We spent the next hour or so playing in here. He loved it.  He said he liked playing in it by himself much better than when all those wild kids were in there.  (There was an 8 year old boy having a birthday party and those kids were rambunctious! Gavin reminded them a few times that the signs said not to throw the corn and not to jump into the corn!) 

 I'm glad little man knows how to follow the rules ;)

 

There was a little break in the heavier rain and we went out and played on the black rolling circles for a few minutes, but then it was back into the corn crib playing area. I tried everything I could to get Gavin to get in them so I could push him, but he wasn't having it.  Aunt Stace even got in one to show him to do it, but all he wanted to do was push me in it.

 

There was all kinds of stuff there to do, but with that darn pesky rain, we didn't get to do much, and I didn't think about grabbing my umbrella out of the car :(  They had a small petting zoo, a zip line for kids, horse and pony rides, making a flower pot for Mother's Day, and then all of their regular stuff to play on.  We'll definitely have to go back on a day that's guaranteed no rain!

 

We finally made a run through the rain and went inside to get some apple slushes, suckers, and Aunt Stace bought herself a new flag for my flower garden. 

Gavin said that's not an accident in his pants, that's from the rain.  I think I just got fibbed to!

 

 

After we left Reid's Orchard, we headed to McDonald's for lunch.  I couldn't figure out why that kid was so adamant about eating lunch at McDonald's until we pulled into the parking lot and saw the playground.  He said "I knew they had that there!"  What a ham bone!

 

In between bites of his lunch, he would run back and play on the playground.

And while he was playing, Aunt Stace was using the happy meal toy to try and learn her camera in manual mode. 

 



 

I noticed when we left McDonald's that it had stopped raining.  I thought about going back to Reid's Orchard, but knew that the play land activities weren't going to be going on much longer, so we decided to go to the park under the blue bridge.  Excellent choice!  There was only a handful of kids there.  We had the run of the park.  The only bad thing was that most of the slides had puddles at the end.  We found a few that had been cleaned off my some other kids butt.  LOL!  We went down slides, we played on the swings, we looked for me in the airplanes with the binoculars, we watched sailboats go by, we climbed rock walls and found fossils, and we sang the Sasha Poo song into those echo toys on the playground.  We had a great time playing and Aunt Stace even got in the big kid swing so Gavin could push me.  No pictures tho!

 

 

Below is a video of Gavin singing a little song he was taught.  It goes "Sasha Poo, Sasha Poo, Shasha has poopie inbetween her toes".  I love how he says 'inbetween' and 'toes'.  I love that little ham bone!