The Riffle Zoo: STAYCATION!

Matt had a week off......yes, you heard me correctly.......a week off!!!! Yipee!!! And boy did we ever need time with our man! We decided that we could not do everything that we needed to get done that week, but we were going to spend the week doing lots of fun things with our kiddos! It has been a long year getting settled and we haven't done too many family fun events. So we dedicated this week to the kids! Day 1 of our staycation was Channing's birthday party.

Day 2 was painting the garage! Yes, this was a to do item, but we only had a half a day, so we stayed home.

Day 3: I took Channing to the Dr.'s for her 1 yr. check up (21 lbs) and Matt took the other 4 kiddos to the old house to do some yard work, have a picnic, and go to the park. I got to run some errands as well.

Day 4: We took them to the pool. They had so much fun! They have been wanting to go swimming for a while. And check out the girls' suits! I bought Channing and Finley their suits a couple weeks ago and didn't even realize that the girls had such similar suits. They looked awful cute! I was going to take a picture of them in the pool, but when I got out of the pool, Matt decided not to watch Finley and she was drowning so I had to put the cameras down and jump in and save her - oh yes, she was right in front of the lifeguard! She was only scared for a little bit. We finished the night off with dinner with some friends and then some more friends came over and we had a bomb fire. We love spending time with the Blows and Townsends!

Day 5: Zoo Day! It was an absolutely beautiful day. We had such a relaxing time with our kiddos - they really are quite amazing. Here I am trying to pose the kids in front of the huge sleeping gorilla....it wasn't working out so well!

Harper climbed on absolutely everything he saw. Any rocks, trees, statues, you name it, he scaled it.

Channing loved the giraffe! She kept trying to stick her fingers in his nose. Finley was on lettuce patrol. She would go get a bunch for everyone to fee him - she would not participate. The big kids barely fed them.

The navigators! We just let them take us around the entire zoo. It was really fun having them guide us.

Matt and I laughed that we are watching our kids grow on this statue. We have so many pictures on this lion.

Channing loved the carousel. She laughed and thought it was great......the first time. The second time we went on, she was done. I love watching all their firsts. There is just something so amazing about their little smiles when they experience something new.

Seeing that the big kids didn't care to feed the birds last time, the lone ranger decided that she could do it this time. She did really good. The birds weren't so hungry so they weren't swarming us. We had to go find a bird that would eat some.

Of course Finley was told she was too little to ride alone, so I get suckered into riding the train.......Choo choo!!

They all rode a pony. Finley looked absolutely cute on it! She is so little but acts so much bigger. She is a dynamic child.

Harper kept saying he wanted to go into the lizard place on the map. We have actually never been in here and they really like it. Channing loved watching the fish! She just stood and banged the glass. It was a magnificent day!