The Zoo

[A couple of monkeys]


[Evy was first in line for the pony rides and knew right away she wanted to ride the white horse!]


[I had to drag her away from the monkey house--she loved watching this guy and his "friend"]

There is a small zoo relatively close to our house so when Groupon offered up a great deal on admission we decided to try it out. Scott took Tuesday off so he could join us and we had a great time! Evy loved riding the train, carousel and pony! We spent about three hours checking out the animals and I was amazed at Evy's interest in the huge snakes. Yuck! We'll be making a return trip!

4th of July

Over the 4th of July holiday we visited Scott's sister's family at their lake house in Southern Iowa. We watched fireworks from the boat and Evy stayed awake until 11 to take it all in (we paid for that later, when she was awake half the night!) Evy fell in love with Cody dog and baffled her older cousins with her crazy toddler behavior--for example, waking up 4 hours before they rolled out of bed each morning. And, Uncle Kraig helped Evy "catch" her first fish!

Parenting Misconception # 5: Band-Aids

Emily's Parenting Misconceptions
1. Newborns sleep a lot
2. Newborns like to cuddle
3. Newborns like to eat
4. Once your infant starts sleeping through the night that issue is tackled
5. Toddlers like band-aids

Add another misconception to my list. Holy band-aid drama! Evy scraped the top of her foot while we were in Colorado and re-injured the same spot yesterday. It's bleeding and her shoe seems to rub on it so she needs a band-aid. She flips out at the idea of a band-aid, probably because she associates them with shots--that's the only time she gets a band-aid. Scott and I attempted to reason with her, we attempted humor, I put a band-aid on my foot to demonstrate that it doesn't hurt, and then we resorted to brute force. Hold her down and put the damn thing on. Drama! And, when I got to work I noticed scooby doo was still on my foot:

Boating Fun

[Loves throwing sticks into the water!]


[Look at the big stick I found]


[When we go "fast" and head in for the day Evy likes to ride covered up like this (head covered up too) and she normally falls asleep! We've been occasionally skipping her nap in order to get our boating in so she sneaks her 20 minute cat nap in this way.]

Evy's Best

If you ask Evy what her favorite part of our Colorado trip was she will say, "The orange cat was my best." That's right, not the mountains, not the rodeo, not the swimming, not the smores, but the orange cat. Hmmm, I think we could have found an orange cat a lot closer to home. We found the orange cat (along with many other more exotic animals) at Rock Bottom Ranch. Scott's ability to small-talk with strangers paid off because we ended up getting a private tour and got to pet baby chicks and collect eggs from the chickens. And we got to see an orange cat.

Aspen

They were still skiing in Aspen two weeks before our trip! By the time we got there the snow had pretty much melted, but Evy still managed to find a pile to stomp in. The gondola ride was fun and the view from the top was amazing. Randomly, there was a pile of hula-hoops at the lodge and running around with the hula-hoop seemed to be Evy's favorite part of the excursion.

Snowmass Rodeo

Apparently they have rodeos on ski mountains in the summer. Evy had a blast at the rodeo! She got to ride a "pony" named Biddy. I was not thrilled with her getting on a horse that size (it was no pony!) but she wasn't scared at all! Notice her perfect yeehaw form in the picture! The rodeo held her attention for two hours--she loved watching the cowboys and the bucking broncos!