Play?!

   As stated before Harrison loves playing outside. Backyard, playgrounds, parks... you name it, the kid loves it. We're getting to the point that when we're doing something not-so-fun (shopping, eating, trying to go to bed...) my little man whimpers in the sweetest voice, "play.. play.. play!" Oh poor child of mine - I'm making you eat, bathe and take a nap instead of playing outside 24/7. Seriously. The boy lives for playing outside.

We love us some covered slides!

   Thank goodness we have a few parks close by!

  Don't mind me as I'm running around the side to make sure Harrison makes it to the slide. Plus he likes to yell "Momma" down the slide to make sure I'm there. It is nice to be wanted!

Later gator.

~Emily

The zoo.. Again!

   I swear, sometimes the zoo just doesn't get old. It's a good thing we're "friends of the zoo" and all.

Cheetos at the zoo!

   We have our little routine down pat. We get to the zoo before lunch. We see the polar bear then off to the train (choo choo). 

Relaxing on the train with our gator juice.

   After the train, it's off to Australia - Harrison can pretty much walk the whole thing. Then we load him into the stroller and head to the kid zone. After a quick carrousel ride and maybe some lunch it's to Africa!

Yes, I'm on the carrousel too!

  In Africa we love checking out the Sky Safari Ride and all of the chimpanzees/monkeys. On our last visit we went a bit out of order. We went to Africa first on the tram (or bus as Harrison calls it) and ate lunch overlooking the giraffes and ostriches. Nothing like a pb&j in the wilds of Africa!

Our scenic view - don't mind the napkin on that table...

   Harrison even got a special new drink - we called it gator juice. I think it was just flavored water in a fun gator bottle. That kept him entertained the rest of the day. 

Pretty much what the rest of the afternoon looked like
with some choking - not used to a "normal" drink.

   Harrison was more awake than normal and really liked checking out the lions and meerkats. 

That's a big lioness napping by the window. 

   The meerkats are always fun to watch. (They remind us of small Tootsies!)

Waving at Mr. Meerkat.

The best part about the zoo? The quiet that overtakes the backseat within 5 minutes of pulling away from the parking lot. Ah.. almost makes me want to take a nap. Okay so I did too. Happy wife, happy life, right?!

The wild one,

~Emily   

Big night out!

   So a couple Fridays ago Adam and I were trying to figure out what to do for dinner. To be honest, I really wanted to take Harrison to our T-Rex Cafe but I didn't want to drive all the way out there. Instead we stayed a little closer to home and took our first trip to Chuck E Cheese!

Some photo booth fun. Harrison is saying "cheese" by the way...

   Not going to lie - I was really impressed with the place. It was super clean, didn't smell like kids and was pretty spread out. When Adam and I were younger it was ShowBiz Pizza. It was the place for the 6yr birthday party. Chuck E Cheese is basically the 21st century version. 

Our first game/ride!

   Okay this was hilarious! You climb on the horse which faces a video screen. You are to steer the horse around the track. The horse actually moves based on your actions. Harrison was laughing. I was laughing. Poor Adam was trying to keep the horse alive. If you watch the video screen you can see Harrison's horse go crashing into the track wall. Yeah, I don't see jockey as one of his future jobs... Course the rate he's growing, Harrison might be too tall anyway.

   At some point we did manage to eat our salad bar and pizza (both okay). We even took in a Chuck E Cheese show. However it did take us forever to use up all of our tokens. And we only had 30 maybe. Adam and I enjoyed some skeeball (best game EVER!). Harrison tried it but all the balls basically ended up back to the beginning. 

That's about as far as he could throw the skeeball. 

  Harrison also rode in Cinderella's carriage twice - there were buttons to push inside. We like buttons. 

I could be Prince Charming!

   Harrison played a few other games with Adam while I wandered from game to game collecting tickets the younger kids left behind. What? You snooze you lose. Plus you have to have about a bazillion tickets to buy a package of Smarties anyways...

Trying to feed the dog.

   Once we were all gamed out we cashed in our 127 tickets. Harrison got 2 packages of Smarties, 1 bracelet (it was blue!) and 1 squishy worm toy. Of course as soon as we got in the car I found about 15 more tickets in my purse. Totally figures.

Another first down!

~Emily