Dallas Aquarium

Last Wednesday Carli and I joined Brandon's class at the Dallas Aquarium for their field trip. It was pretty fun. They have lots of really neat animals and fish there. Carli was in awe at the tank that had manatees, rays, fish, and turtles in it. She kept waving to them. It was so cute!

The manatees were fun to watch. They were eating lettuce while we were there. They are so huge!The girls in our group thought this teeny starfish was really neat. I had them put their fingers next to it so we could see how small it was!

Aren't octopus fascinating? What a crazy creature!

It was a fun day and I'm really glad I was able to go with them. Amazingly I was able to join all 3 of the kids on their field trips this year. It is so great to be able to be with the kids and enjoy these fun days with their classes.

Brett's Graduation

I am so behind on here so I will slowly try to catch up. :) Last weekend I flew home to see my youngest brother graduate from high school. It was such an awesome trip. I had a great time with my family and Ben was so great to hang out with the kids while I was gone. I have awesome friends who helped out, too, and I couldn't have worked it out without them. Thank you!!!

Me and Mom before the graduation

Here is Brett with his diploma.
Charisse (my sister) and nephew, Harper, at the graduation partyThayne (brother), Brett, and Dad at the party.Saturday we had a graduation picnic for Brett and our cousin, Seth. Here are the graduates!

We also celebrated my Grandma's 90th birthday! Wow!!! Here she is with all the grandkids who were there that day.

The view from the park. It was really stunning!

Here is a view from the hill just above the park looking down on it and past to the beautiful mountains. It was just so gorgeous.Just before I had to leave we stopped by to see this precious little baby! He is my cousin's newest addition to their family and he was just 2 weeks old. So sweet and cuddly! I just love newborns.It was a really wonderful weekend. We shopped, ate yummy food, and just hung out together. I did miss my hubby and kids, but I have to admit that a part of me enjoyed eating when the food was ready adn hot, got up when I wanted, got ready as my pace, sat through sacrament meeting and heard every word (mom and dad spoke so it was a great day to be there!), and didn't have to worry about anyone else for a few days. Of course, I worried about everyone being ok at home, but you know what I mean. ;)

I got back and went right back into the whirlwind that is my life. I will update more on that in the next post! ...another field trip, kindergarten memory books, a birthday party, feeding missionaries, last days of school, church calling, award ceremonies, preparing for our summer trip...

Week of Field Trips--the Zoo!

My second field trip last week was to the Fort Worth Zoo with Megan's kindergarten class. There were so many parents who volunteered to go that we all pretty much just had our own child to take around the zoo so it was a lot of fun and not stressful at all. We hung out with Megan's friend, Sydney, and her mom, Lindy, who is my good friend. It was great! The weather was perfect, too. I bit overcast, a few sprinkles her and there, but the temperature was perfect. What a fun day!

We love the flamingos. We always start there first. Maybe it's just the pink color, but for some reason I am drawn to these beautiful birds.These little deer (can't remember what they are called) were all 3 sharing the same branch. I thought this was pretty cool that they could all hold on to it at the same time and eat. LOL!

The hippos are always a favorite as well. Here they are just peeking up at us.This rattlesnake was in a mood that morning. We could hear him rattling so loudly. He did not like that we were all standing in front of his glass. If you look at the pic you can see the tail blurred on the bottom. It was crazy to see it rattling so much. He was in the strike position! Thank goodness for glass!!! I did learn, though, that you can most certainly hear a rattlesnake rattling before you come upon him. It was so loud! It went on for a good 15 minutes, too.We stopped for a photo opportunity in front of these pretty falls and it didn't last long before Megan saw the train coming and she was up and off that wall!The baby giraffe was so precious!

The baby giraffe.

Getting a bit tired.

Stockyards

Last Tuesday I accompanied Kate's class to the Stockyards. I was looking forward to seeing what it was all about since we had never been there. It didn't disappoint. We all had a great time and we thought it was pretty cool. I was in charge of Kate and 3 of her good friends from her class. You will recognize 2 of them from her birthday post. We started out with a lesson on the cattle, how the cowboys herd them, the type of clothing they wear, and about their tools (whips, saddles, and spurs).

Then it was off to the maze. The kids were each given a card with the letters M A Z E and they had to find all the letter stations in the maze and punch them. Then they had to find their way out. It was all times and my girls did awesome! They were the 2nd group out! Here they are finding their way through.Yay! Kate gives a thumbs up for finding a letter.Yippee!!! They made it out! They don't look excited or anything, though... :)

Next it was time to watch the cowboys herd the cattle down the street. They do this 2 times a day and it's cool to see the animals so close. It only lasted about 2 minutes, though, so it wasn't that exciting. The kids loved it, though.Taking a break for a pictures in front of the flowers.
The guide took us up on the Cowboy Catwalk where they would go up to look over all the cattle. They told us all about the Livestock Auction. It's pretty cool to see that they still do auctions every week.This si the Cowtown Coliseum. They do professional rodeos every Friday and Saturday. Kate can't wait to actually go see one. None of us have ever been to a rodeo before so we figure we should see what it's all about for once. Friday nights kids get in free!