Visit with the aunties

Wednesday Britni and I headed up to Ashton to steal away our nephew Charles for a few days. We figured that he needed a break from playing big brother to Juniper and Anthony. He was so excited that he didn't even want us to stay and visit with his mom and grandma. He kept saying "Can I go to Kate's house now?"

We stopped in Idaho Falls for a quick bite to eat at McDonald's and Charles tried out the play place.

We didn't get back to Pocatello till about 8 p.m. so we hurried and took the dogs on a walk while Charles rode his bike. Then after a bath, he crawled into his Spiderman PJs and played with a magnetic dinosaur book.

He was so excited to go to the zoo that he woke up extra early and came upstairs to wake me up. "Kate! Wake up. We're going to the zoo today!" So we ate breakfast, went and picked up Britni's friend's daughter Madyson, and headed down to Utah.

Charles loved this big elephant that made grumbling and sneezing sounds!

Mad on the elephant
Posing on the tigers

Charles's favorite, the zebra.

"Guys, let's take a break"

Counting the pigs
Cooling off in the misters

We didn't really get to see any real gorillas because they were outside, where the area was blocked off because of an injured camel they were trying to keep calm. We also only got a glimpse of the giraffes because they had a brand new baby they were trying to get to walk.

Charles was very excited to ride the carousel. He rode the zebra (of course!) and I rode an anteater.
Madyson on the ladybug.

My favorite, the little tamarins.

The snow leopard and her cub.
Brit's favorite, the red panda.
Mad's favorite, the elephants.

Charles (and the rest of us) were running out of juice so we stopped for some lunch before continuing on to the play area and train.
While we waited for food, Charles and I decided to ham it up a little.
Puffer fish faces
Scary faces, Rawr!

What a goofball!


Mad lifted Charles up to see the prairie dogs, but the roof was a little lower than they both expected. Ouch!



Charles was excited for the train, he wanted to ride it since he saw it as we were going into the zoo, but we saved it as the last zoo adventure of the day.



He was really tuckered out by the time we got back to the car that he took a little nap while we drove to Build-A-Bear at the mall.

At the Build-A-Bear store, Charles picked out a sheep and dressed him in fireman's clothes. We was Fred the Fireman. Madyson picked out a royal blue teddy bear with colored peace signs all over her fur and named her Lulu. Unfortunately I had put my camera away by then and only got a pic on my phone.


Cosmo likes Charles's Build-A-Bear box and has been crawling inside it all morning long. Charles and Mad are still sleeping and I'm enjoying a quiet morning with the dogs. But I figure that they've been asleep long enough, so off I go to wake them up!