What a wonderful weekend we had!

I've been trying to post this entry to my blog all week, but for whatever reason I haven't been able to get with it. So here it is...

What a great weekend we had this past weekend! We met up with some friends (Tera, Alex, Braylee & Brynna Knepp) in Louisville and ate at the Cheesecake Factory. YUM!!!! This was actually our first meeting in person, but we’ve known each other for I guess 3 years now. We met when we were pregnant on an online message board for pregnant moms-to-be. Her daughter Brynna and Courtlyn are a little over a week apart. The girls hit it off and so did the adults! :) We had a wonderful lunch and even better cheesecake. The conversation was really good, and I hope this is just the beginning of many gatherings between us! (P.S. Tera--you and your family are in our thoughts and prayers while you grieve the loss of your precious Gramps.)

Here are some pictures from our meeting…

Brynna, Braylee & Courtlyn

all with their eyes closed :)

Brynna, Tera, Braylee, me & Courtlyn

holding hands...

giving hugs...

After we left the Cheesecake Factory we window shopped around the St. Matthews Mall a bit and then decided we would sightsee around Louisville since we were in the area. We had planned on going to the Derby Museum at Churchill Downs, but figured Courtlyn wouldn't get much of a thrill out of that. So I grabbed my trusty Rand McNally map in the car because my GPS was acting weird and saw that the Louisville Zoo wasn't that far from where we were. So we decided we would surprise Courtlyn and take her to the zoo. It was near naptime for her and she was getting antsy in the car and kept saying, "I don't wanna go home!" as we got on the Expressway. We tried to assure her that we weren't going home and before we hit the exit ramp for the zoo she fell asleep. As we meandered through the streets we finally found the zoo and sure enough Courtlyn woke up. When we told her where we were at she squealed with excitement! It was priceless!!! She was SO excited and could not wait to get inside.

The weather was perfect and it wasn't too crowded. We got there about 2:30 which gave us 3 1/2 hours to check out everything, so it was just the right amount of time. We got to see lots of monkeys (our favorite), snakes, hippos, a rare white alligator, birds, a wolf, emus, wallaroos, tigers, turtles, zebras, lions, camels, giraffes, ostrich, rhinos, and a couple things I can't remember what their names were. The one thing we wanted to see that we didn't get to see were the elephants. They were there, but apparently they were hiding or sleeping. Not sure, but we were rather disappointed since we are big elephant fans. :)

After we saw all of the above mentioned animals we decided to let Courtlyn ride the carousel. To say that she loved it would be an understatement.

We let her ride it twice and she was the screaming child that everyone was staring at as we left the park. See....

She did not want to leave the horse--as she called it! When asked if she rode the horses that go round and round. She would say, "no, I ride the horse that goes up and down!". She could have cared less that the carousel went around she liked that the horse went up and down. Kids! I could have done without the round and round since I get nauseous at the very thought of it, but the things you do for your kids.

We left the park and grabbed Courtlyn a bite to eat at her favorite place, McDonald's. Notice I said her favorite place. :) Then we headed for Richmond. About 10 miles down the road she was sound asleep until we pulled into our driveway. She was worn out.

Sunday, Mother's Day, I was met with Courtlyn running into the bathroom while I was getting ready for church with 2 cards in her hands yelling, "Mommy, Happy Mommy's Daddy!" as proud as a peacock. I cracked up! I got 2 sweet cards--1 from David and 1 from Courtlyn. After church we had lunch with my dad and stepmom at Casa which was yummy of course. Then we headed home for some much needed naps and then back to church that evening.

So as the title says....what a wonderful weekend we had! I hope we have many more like this!