Our Trip to Kansas

My friend Holly recently moved to Wichita, KS. This is the first time in years we've lived a reasonable distance from each other. She has never met Izebelle or Kaelie and I had never met her husband of two years, so we were definitely due for a visit. Holly and Justin recently welcomed their own daughter, Hazel, 6 weeks ago. So, I decided to pack up the kids to go visit them in Kansas. Both sides of my family are from Kansas/Missouri, so my mom decided to make the trip with me so she could try to see some of her relatives. The drive out was pretty good. The girls did very well riding in the car for more than 9 hours.


On our first full day there we went to Holly's, then she took us to an animal park very close to her house. It was awesome!!! You can feed and pet so many types of animals. The girls had a blast.

Baby white tiger born in May

Feeding a female giraffe 

Kaelie petting the giraffe

The little girl standing behind Ize was too scared to feed the giraffe, 

so she gave all her lettuce leaves to Ize to give to the giraffe.

It was so kind of her.

Baby monkeys

There was an opportunity to feed the rhino, but we opted not to

Cockatoo

Red panda

That's right! We got to pet kangaroos too

If you look at the pouch of this kangaroo, 

you can see her baby's legs sticking out

Holly petting a baby kangaroo

Chasing a kangaroo

Feeding goats

Petting bunnies

Feeding turtles. The girls were standing inside by them, 

until they all surrounded us and started climbing over one another to get to us

Feeding a lemur. I love that he has his tiny little monkey paw on my leg

Feeding the giraffes one more time. 

Ize is making a funny face because the giraffe just licked her whole hand

Kae was a little scared of getting licked. That fear was warranted. 

Her whole arm was covered in giraffe spit immediately after this picture was taken. 

We had so much fun. We went and ate at great places with family and friends. We went shopping and ate more junk than anyone should eat in a weekend. We were sad to go, but also ready to get back home to Marty. 

Me and Holly

Baby Hazel

The girls with their grandma

Saying good-bye to Hazel

My mom and her cousin Al

We had fun hanging out with grandma. The girls usually only get to see her for a few hours at a time. So it was fun to hang out with her for a few days. 

Ize and Kae also loved hanging out with Holly. Hopefully we can see each other at least once a year now that we live so close to one another. 

Face Scrapes and Field Trips

I went to get my hair cut at a friends house before leaving for our trip. While we were talking about my hair, I didn't notice the kids had gone out the back door until Kaelie started screaming. She had fallen on their cement step and scraped her across it. Oddly I wasn't freaking out. I had a strong calming feeling come over me and because I was so calm, so was Kaelie. She was off and playing again within a few minutes.

We were lucky. It healed within a week and didn't scar at all.

Izebelle's class had their first field trip. It was at Chuck-E-Cheese. They do a low key field trip to start out, so the parents can get to know one another. We had a lot of fun and even got to say hi to the mouse himself.

We had a great time and we're looking forward to the next field trip.

End of Summer, Beginning of School

 We didn't really finish out the summer strong. It was so hot outside, so we ended up spending a lot of time indoors. We did visit a splash park and play in our plastic pool a few times, but not a whole lot more than that.

Izebelle began school again on August 22nd. She now goes to preschool across the street from us. I am so happy that we don't have to drive to school anymore. Its so much fun to walk across the street together and talk and hold hands before she leaves me for more than two hours.

                                            

I will miss the wonderful ladies at her previous school, but Ize is blossoming at her new school. She's already made a friend. Her friend's name is Tammie and she is all Ize talks about when she comes home. I've seen them play together a few times and they seem to have a lot of fun together.

We're so proud of her.