Monkeying Around at the Dallas Zoo

It's early November and the temps are still in the 80s most days.  Imagine our delight when we awoke to a cloudy, 74 degree day for the zoo.  It was perfect!  We picked up Nash and his mama and drove past downtown to the Dallas Zoo.

We got to park in the first parking lot, walked right up to buy our tickets and then were greeted by these beautiful birds.

Their colors are simply magnificient.

We said good morning to all the flamingos and then consulted our map to find all of the super cool animals.

Zoo South is where it's at!  The Giants of the Savanna are our favorites.

Before we got to all of the big animals, though, we made a pit stop to see the penguins.  So cute!

Then the real fun began. Get this--we found Rafiki!!!

She kept saying, "We have to tell Madison that we found Rafiki."

Next up--some of my faves, the elephants.  As a bonus we got to see this brand new baby, too.

Then we were on to the giraffes, ostriches and antelopes.

Our main goal was to feed the giraffes.  Just look at this majestic creature!

We bought some lettuce and Cami walked right up to the giraffe.  She may have been terrified to say, "Trick or Treat" to strangers, but this girl had no fear of feeding a gigantic animal.

At first, I held her as she fed him...

but then she did it all on her own.  She told us later, "I was so brave!  I fed him all by myself!"
Yes, you sure sure did.  I was impressed.

Sweet friends.  She has stopped calling him Baby Nash, since he turned two a few months ago.  She still treats him like a little brother, though.  So cute.

We said hello to the cheetahs...

and then let the kids take a ride on the small elephant...

and big one, too.  Look at me, mom!

After that, it was time to go check out the gorillas.  There were three big ones, all doing different things.  This big guy was having a healthy snack and watching us very closely.

He was such a beast!

He moved over to the glass area when we walked around there, but kept his back to us.

Another one did not shun us, though.  In fact, right after I snapped this picture, the gorilla in the background charged at us!  He ran up and hit the glass.  Hard!  Tara was so startled that she scooped up Nash and jumped back five feet!  Cami and I just watched in amazement.

Then he sat down very calmly and began munching on some lettuce, while keeping an eye on us.  Easy big guy!

After lunch, we decided to tour some other parts of the zoo via train.  It was so neat!  

It took us over many different enclosures and gave us a birds eye view of anything from crocodiles to chimps.  We even caught a glimpse of the Dallas skyline.

I gotta say, the Dallas Zoo is impressing me every time we go back.  

We ended our afternoon by spending time in the Children's Area.  This girl thought getting inside an enormous nest was pretty funny.

She ran around and checked out the gigantic spider web...

and finally joined Nash in the water.  

By the time these two were done, they were soaking wet.
Thank goodness we had brought a change of clothes!

One of my goals this month is to spend more time outdoors.  Zoo on Wednesday and bike rides last night.  So far, so good.

Trick or Treat

How in the world did Halloween fall on a Monday this year?  That's just silly.  The kids had school, then running club afterwards.  In 89 degree weather.  Mind you, it's the end of October.  They arrived home seriously sweaty and required showers.  Surely there would be no homework assigned, right?  Wrong!  The 4th grader was still working on his project by the time the grandparents arrived.  Meanwhile, the 2 year old decided that she didn't want to be Rapunzel afterall.  The costume was itchy.  Since this was the second costume I'd bought for her--the first one fell by the wayside after we made a last minute run to Party City a few days prior--I was determined that she was going to put it on!  The 1st grader started spazzing out when I used too much fake eyelash glue on her.  There's a chance that some of her top eyelashes got glued to her bottom ones, so maybe that was warranted.  

Nevertheless, a solid 45 minutes late, we had everyone in costume and ready for their photoshoot.  Hey Rapunzel--can you please look over here?!

22 tries later, we finally got all four to smile.  Persistence, my friends.

The grandparents wished them lots of candy and then said goodbye.

This cool pirate was thrilled to be meeting a few of her good friends for a spooky night of fun.

Donald Trump, Gwen Stefani, Rapunzel and I were off to a neighborhood party.

The Leedy Family went all out.  There were multiple photo booths with cool props.

Soccer for the boys, trampoline for the girls...

and a Baby Lion that was just as unhappy as Rapunzel.  Being 2 is tough sometimes.

Lila was grinning from ear to ear, though, since she got to hang out with two of her BFFs,
Lauren and Madison.

And Jackson was happy as could be playing with these little monsters.

We tried to round up all the kids and then everyone headed out for a major Get Candy mission.

Murphy Boo 2016 was a big hit for these boys even before trick-or-treating began.

Somehow we didn't lose any kids. A win for all!  And they got so much good candy.

This girl was the happiest, though, after we came home.  The big kids and dad had gone to the Haunted Maze in our neighborhood, but Cami was done.  I found her sitting in the floor eating a Snickers for the first time.  When I asked what she was doing, she just smiled and said, "I found some chocolate!"  It was the happiest I'd seen her all night.  And that's a wrap, folks.

Grown-ups like Halloween, too!

It's back!  The Rachavong's annual Halloween Bash has made a return!

We searched high and low and finally decided on Richard Simmons and Jane Fonda.
Leotard?  Check. Leggings?  Check.  Leg warmers?  Check.
All I was missing were some wrist weights!  Richard had it all, but my favorite was his wig.

We had a blast hanging out with Christopher Robin, a 70s star, Mr. Miyagi...

and Rainbow Dash!

Donald Trump even made an appearance, too!

It was so great hanging out with the Black Cat, Cobra Kai and Winnie the Pooh.

The Ghostbusters were there to make sure that things didn't get out of control!

Little Daniel Son even woke up for some of the party.  

Of course, no Halloween party would be complete without a Costume Contest.
Coach won for Sexiest
Paul Blart, Mall Cop won for Funniest
Cobra Kai and Mr. Miyagi won for Best Couple

We'll have to up our game next year so that we can come home with a trophy!

Winning Weekend

Wow!  What a weekend.  

We kicked it off with attending the GHS homecoming pep rally on Friday afternoon.  So fun!

Megan, Taylor, Carole, Jenny and I all cheered together at Garland, and Mandy cheered two years ahead of us.  The Owls have such great traditions, and we all really wanted for our kids to see it in person.

So what do you do when the pep rally starts at 1:30?  Take the kids out of school early!  The Varsity cheerleaders thought they were all so precious, and of course, our kids thought it was pretty cool to meet the big girls.

We got to sit on the floor with all of other GHS exes.

From the moment the band started playing, this girl was up and dancing in her seat.  She loved it!

Get it girl!

Before long, they were kicking things off with a bang.  Hey Gang!

Little did we know that Daddy was going to surprise us there.  Such a fun surprise!  He said that he just couldn't miss seeing me cheer at the pep rally:)

We loved walking the halls of our old high school...

and finding our old bricks was pretty fun, too.  Love these girls, and I'm so thankful that we're all still really good friends.

Fast forward a few hours, and we were at our tailgate.  Since Jackson is so outnumbered by the girls in this group, he invited Ben to come with us.  We ate some BBQ...

hung out with friends, including precious Baby JP...

and his big brother Dylan...who just might have a crush on Lila!

We visited with old friends, like Jerry Clark...

and let the kids run around and enjoy the warm weather.  Dylan had quite the entourage!

JP and Jenny were loving the night...

as were Presley, Maddie and Teagan.

Then it was time for some football.  We scored a touchdown pretty early in the game.
Gig 'em Owls!

I was so happy that another Garland alum was there with us, too.

Jeremy's son, Chase, thought hanging out with Jackson and Ben was pretty cool.

This little girl was all about the pom poms that we brought from home.
She'd holler, "Go Owls!  Woo hoo!!!"

It was a fantastic night for the girls...

the boys...

parents and grandparents.  We love us some GHS.
The Owls won, too, which always makes it more fun.

By noon the next day, Jackson was at another tailgate.  This time, it was for the Texas Tech/TCU game in Fort Worth, with Tucker and his family.

The twins each brought a friend.  When their mom sent me this photo, I immediately thought that it looked like they were on a double date.  Oh my!  Jackson and Brentley are pretty cute together, but I'm SO not ready for any of that!  The Red Raiders won in double overtime--such a nail-biter!

While Jackson was cheering for Tech, we were in Murphy cheering for the Bumblebees.  Lila got the first goal and then got one more before the game was over.  The Bees won big--10 to 0!
That called for a three-way chest bump.

On Sunday, we still had two more games to play.  Jackson's team won the first game and then he pitched the last two innings of their second game.  He ended it by striking out the last two batters. The Fury won 6-2!

Madison's soccer team had won earlier that day, too, and then the Cowboys even won in overtime that night.  I'm pretty sure this may go down as one of our most successful sports weekends in years.  We love some competition, but it's always more enjoyable when you win!