My Valentines date

Valentines day happened to fall on a day that I didn't have language class

and my mind was swirling with anticipation of things to do and get done

around my neglected home. When I told Callan the good

news that mommy didn't have to go to "work' the next day and

would get to stay home with him he grinned his ever so big

smile and gave me a huge bear hug and said

"yay we can go to the zoo!!"

I looked at Cam and he being so wise told me the list of

to do's that I had built up could wait,

but the opportunity to spend the morning with your

3 year old at the zoo is a chance of lifetime.

I married a smart guy, he was so right. I am so

glad I took the time!

What better way to say I love you then with time spent together!



What a lucky girl to have such cute valentines, especially this one! The cute bear hat was sent to him by his Grandma Shirley and
I am glad he picked that one to bring, I think it entertained some of the animals.
they were all taking extra glances at him as he would walk by. :D

Look at the orangutan, wondering what the heck was on his head!

one of our favorite things about the DC zoo is the open air zip line that runs through it and you can watch the orangutan swing through. Super cool, as long as you don't get pooped on!

being Valentines day a lot of the animals had special little parties thrown for them. This little gorilla was a fan favorite. He had to be sneaky is getting his treats the older and much bigger gorillas were not in a sharing mood.

Can you tell the ape house is our favorite place to be.

Redemption

Redemption is nice. Oh so nice 

And it came in the form of a girls NYC trip  

I suppose it still needs to be  with my family,

but I am not sure they will ever give me another chance anyways.

This weekend was full of shopping, eating fabulous food,

creating outrageous scenes with our laughter and did I say shopping?

 Trust me,  it bears repeating.

We are a group of girls who know how to shop.

We all met each other last fall and knew immediately we were

meant to be friends and this weekend together  is the first of many as we

all leave for our own little pieces of the world this summer.

We knew our trip was going to be a success when we first got out of the car and we ran into Molly Sims and 15 minutes later after scoring a table at Serendipity's we stood and chatted next to Parker Posey. 

We had plenty of time to be silly while  sipping Serendipity's famous hot chocolate because we were put at a table that was right in the middle of a taping of Real Housewives of New York.
 And as we all know there is a lot of work that goes into reality TV.   ;)

PHILLY

As if we hadn't endured enough we couldn't drive home right past

Philly without a stop to see and try to absorb some more culture and history.

It was short and quick, but we hit the highlights.



some of the kids were a little more enthusiastic than others about the stop.
bet  you can't tell which ones.

Liberty Bell!
I had given up by this point trying to get the kids to cooperate with pictures.

New York, New York

New York City is one of my absolute most FAVORITE places to be.

I have been waiting  for years to bring  Cam

and the boys and to share the magic with them.

But dang it all,  

there was NO magic!

We went in between Christmas and New Years

along with a million other people and

the weather was so bitter cold it was

practically unbearable.

Although their was a silver lining.

 I haven't ever been there at Christmas,

so I was able to take solace in that.

My family tried hard to make the best of it

since they new I had such high expectations

but there just wasn't a lot of fun to be had.

I call a do-over!

I just hope that we get the chance before we move. 

Some nice man saw us trying to get a photo with our phone and ended up taking our photo with his nice camera and then he actually emailed it to us later. Who says New Yorkers aren't nice?

To try to avoid the cold, we (along with my sisters and their families, a total of 15 of us) opted for one of the tourist buses, but being under the covered did not  really keep us warm and ended up  just inhibiting our view.

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I hadn't been to the Statue of Liberty since my first time to NYC as a little girl, and my boys have been asking to go for years, so with a new day and a renewed spirit we went out again along with my niece Kelsey to try to sight see some more.

And it was still miserably cold. We are coming from South Dakota people and we were dying, that just tells you it was frigid!

Lego star wars jammies for all the little boys, they loved sporting them for their sleepover.

my cutie nephew Sean's eagle court of honor was the great excuse we needed to head up there in the first place.