We went to Zoo Lights, as we do every year, except this year we went after the holidays. Here are a few pics...
We paid for both Caitie and Bailey to go on the camel ride together, but Bailey wouldn't do it, so I went instead. I'm sure the camel was delighted about that... not. (i gave michael my camera to get a pic. as you can see, i left it on a bright setting. oh well...)
We always stop to see the talking giraffe. Can you find Michael and the girls in this pic?
I thought I was getting a purple unicorn in this pic (caitie loves anything purple and unicorns), but Caitie corrected me right away saying it was a pony, not a unicorn. Don't you think it looks like a unicorn? I can see how it can be either an ear or a horn towards the top of its head... you decide; it's whatever you want it to be. As far as that thing in front of it... haven't a clue; it was just in the way. I'm thinking it's some kind of weird bird. It can be whatever you want it to be too. Like how you have so much freedom on my blog? um, yeah... Moving on now...
Caitie made a new friend while riding the carousel.
Bailey was on a zebra up ahead of us. I was with Caitie and Bailey was with her daddy.
You have to go through the gift shop when exiting the zoo now, at least that night you did. How could we not get something for the girls? Here they are with a couple of possibilities, and also with a purple giraffe... which happens to be their silly daddy.
Caitie stuck with the pink owl, and Bailey finally decided on this cute monkey.
________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________
The next weekend we went to the Glendale Glitter & Glow Block Party as we've done every year since Caitie was born. Here are a few pics...
I love taking hot air balloon pics...
Caitie loves playing the water gun game and the dart game. The girls' got prizes just for trying the dart game, and their daddy won one prize at the water gun game, which went to Caitie, and the lady in charge gave a prize to Bailey even though her daddy didn't win on his second try. They seemed really nice at giving prizes away this year... win or lose. That was nice.
You can see they're thrilled at having to pose for me so I could get a pic of them with their prizes. ha
I was talked into going down the Super Slide this time. I usually just let Caitie and her daddy go down the big slide, but we all decided to go down this time. It was Bailey's first time on it; she was thrilled.
Michael was letting me know that we had just a little more ways to go. I had asked him if we were climbing something similar to Mount Everest... I so dislike heights. ha Just in case you're wondering where Bailey is... she's in front of her daddy... quite eager to get to the top... so unlike her mama. ha
I took pics as we ascended to the top of the slide; I thought it might help get my mind off how high we were going. It actually made me more aware of it. Like, duh, right? ha I did get a pic of this nice balloon and view of the grounds below though.
We were still climbing at this point. I dared to look down and took a quick pic. There was no backing out at this point.
Caitie asked if we could hold hands going down, of which sounded nice, but I told her I wanted to get a pic as we all went down together... me on the left, on the yellow one, Caitie in the middle, on the purple one, and Bailey and her daddy on the right, on the green one... I was also holding my purse, so I didn't have a hand free. This is the best pic I could get. I soon regretted not having held her hand; this pic, as would have been any pic, good or bad, wasn't worth getting when I could have been holding my sweet daughter's hand instead. Next year, I will definitely hold her hand, if they can get me on it again, that is. Talk about panic! It was a bit fast for me... it feels like you're not going to stop when you get to the bottom. And as usual... being totally terrified, I wanted to go on it again! ha It always works out that way. But we didn't have enough tickets if we wanted to go on other rides, so we passed on it.
When we all went on the helicopter ride together, I tried to get a pic, but my camera wouldn't work, it just froze. It started to work as the ride was coming to a stop, so this is the best pic I could get. I guess it was still recuperating from the terrifying slide ride. ha
The girls went on the teacup ride next. They don't allow grown-ups on that ride, so the girls got on and sat in a teacup with a couple of other kids. They hardly spun the teacup at all. Caitie loves to spin fast, but I guess since they didn't know the other kids, they thought it was best to take it easy instead of spinning fast. We kept yelling at them to spin it, but they either didn't hear us or decided to ignore us. ha
We only had enough tickets left for one person to go on a ride, so we let Caitie go on the teacup ride again, thinking this time around she would spin it fast, but it was pretty much the same as before... not much spinnin' goin' 'on. I guess the other kids she sat with weren't into spinning either. But she enjoyed it.
I took a quick pic of this cute bumble bee hot air balloon on our way over to the bounce house area.
They weren't selling tickets for the obstacle course bounce thingy when we got there, it was almost closing time, but a nice lady gave us a couple of her tickets so the girls could go through it. Another nice person gave us the last of his tickets earlier in the evening as well; he and his family were leaving. There are still nice people out there, folks. :) The one problem we had with the bounce house area was the awful music. It was a live high school band... a rock band that had terrible lyrics and was extremely loud; a strange combo for a kids area. When the girls were done going through the obstacle course, and put their shoes back on (they had to take their shoes off to go through it), we took off.
We stopped at a toy/gift shop on the way out. Michael likes to look for anything to do with '55 Cadillacs, like the one we have, and this shop had old toy cars, etc. The girls enjoyed looking around as well.
I took this pic when we left the shop. I like the sepia affect... that was the lighting of the area. Michael looks pregnant (he was holding the girls' prizes, all four stuffed animals, inside his jacket), Caitie looks pretty mad (she was upset about not getting to go in the ice cream shop that was nearby), and Bailey was wanting to go back inside the store. I chose a great time to take a pic. ha
We stopped at Sonic on the way home to get some chocolate shakes. Yum! That helped make up for not stopping for ice cream while at Glendale Glitters. I thought Sonic had a special going on shakes, but they didn't; but we decided to get some anyway. It was a nice way to end the night. We had a good time. :)
