Visiting with Family

Last night we ate dinner with my cousin Jasin and his wife Maria.  Sadly, I took no pictures - ack!  Silly me!  We had such a nice time, however - it was so good to see them!  


Today (Tuesday) Charley and I met my other cousin Jo, her daughter Amber, and Amber's daughter Alyssa (neither of which I'd previously met) at Funtastic, a kids' play center, and hung out for a couple of hours.  Charley had a blast, playing with the other kids and her new baby cousin!

Proud Grandma

Pretty girls

Need some help?

I love the baby!

After we left, we had lunch at Denny's.  Then Marjo met back up with us at the park, and we walked around for a while - C slept in her pack and the dogs got a walk.  It was a nice day!


We picked Rod up from work - his last day.  We drove as far as Reno, then settled into our old hotel for another night.  We managed to squeak in 2 nights of yummy Indian food on this trip - mmmmm - and a night of Thai - the ONLY place I've found that rivals our old standby Taste of Thai.  It was wonderful!  Now that we eat out so seldomly, it's truly a treat!


Wednesday was a truly leisurely day.  Slept in, and hit the road in time for C's first nap.  She slept to Winnamucca, where we stopped, had a Mexican lunch, and then hit the McDonald's playland for the first time ever to kill about 2 hours.  Oh, it's times like these I REALLY wish she could walk - disgusting!!!  Then for her second nap we went on to Elko.


Here's where things really went south...  two words.  COWBOY POETRY.  Ugh.  Never occurred to us we couldn't get a room in Elko!  And we passed Winnemucca and Battle Mountain, only to find out we then had to drive all the way to Wells to get a room - 50 miles EAST of Elko!  AAAAAAHHHHHH!  But, we had appointments in town Thursday (because I THOUGHT we could just stay in town!), and I knew C couldn't make it all the way home w/o a MAJOR meltdown, so we toughed it out.  Thursday - appointments, errands, and finally - home.  What a trip!

Our only "bust" day

Monday Rod had to be at work, so we dropped him off and were going to go to the Discovery Museum.  Ack - they're closed on Mondays!  Well, since it was nice outside, we went ahead and walked the tiny trail around the very small grounds including a mini-pond, and I used the opportunity to take more pics of my little pea-pie!  Amazingly, right here in downtown Sacramento I saw more wildlife than anywhere else!  There were aquatic turtles basking (in January if you can believe that), a Kingfisher chattering and flying back and forth, and 2 Red-shouldered Hawks flew in overhead!  We got a brief show!

"Where'd they go?"  Her new favorite pose - I love it!

Sacramento Zoo

My favorite part about this trip?  The weather!  It was in the 60's and gorgeous on Sunday, so we went to the zoo!  Rod missed C's first trip to the zoo (we went with my friend Sarah and her little one Carter to Atlanta), so he got to escort her around the Sac Zoo - and she was old enough to really enjoy it this time!

Of course we had to stop here first!

Whoa, cool!!!  So BIG!

Anteater!  Awesome!  Big and active - that's what I like!

"Where's the gorilla's eye?"

My faves are always the great apes.  In my second life I will study gorillas in Africa - although I'm becoming more enchanted by orangutans all the time.  Sadly, the chimps weren't out and I only caught a fleeting glimpse of the orang...  but Rod wanted to make up for it in pics!

Waving at the lemurs

"Where did they go?"

A ssssssnake!