SOAKING IT UP

 We had such a great time at my mothers Thanksgiving week.

  Todd and I planned to go see her, and Casey and Avery decided to join us.  We were so GLAD they did.  The trip was so nice.  Avery did great.  It was so nice to see my family.  My brother had a little exciting news.  A friend of his is a real descendant of the McCoys.  You know, the Hatfields and McCoys.  So anyway, the friend and some of his family are involved in a new show on the whole Hatfield and McCoy thing.  Johnny (that's my brother) got involved somehow.  So they are going up to Kentucky I think.  Anyway -somewhere, to shoot the reality show and Johnny will be there.  He seems to think he will be in the show too.  We will see.  He did get to meet the guy from the History Channel which he was pretty pumped about.  I said, when they talk to Johnny  they may just say "Who's that guy? We want to do HIS show." :)  He grew his mustache out just for the occasion. 

While we were at moms Avery had a great time playing with (of course) Bogie.  Bogie is moms dog.

  As a matter of fact we got to spend a day at the zoo and I thought it was so funny that we would be looking at the Lions and Avery would sigh and say, "I miss Bogie."  Then a little later we might be looking at the Bears and again, she would say, "Aww, I miss Bogie."  Seriously I heard her say that at least 3 or 4 times while looking at the zoo animals.  hehehe

Speaking of the zoo, we had such a good time there. 

 

Memphis zoo is great.  Mom was such a trooper and hauled herself along with us the whole day.

 

 The animals were all out and about.

 

 The day was beautiful, sunny with a cool breeze.  So nice.

 We loved the Panda.  We made it there just in time for the Pandas lunch!  This is Avery showing me how he was eating his lunch.

 

Looks like Avery thought Pandas lunch looked pretty good.  :)

 Avery really wanted to see the zebras! 

 

Surprisingly the reptiles were definitely a favorite.  She actually said while looking at one snake, "Oh, he's just precious."  Or rather, "Pecious"  That cracked me up.  Never have I ever referred to a snake as precious.--Or pecious...

We had lunch there at the zoo.  The restaurant was right next to the Monkeys!  The monkeys come up to the windows while you eat and watch you through the glass and you can watch them.  Pretty neat.

 Of course there was ice cream and where there is ice cream, there is this...

Avery enjoyed hers too. 

 Lately Avery is into directions, or the lack thereof.  She seems pretty concerned that we are sometimes not driving the right direction.  She will ask us if we are going the right way, and is not always reassured that we are.  Inside the zoo was not a lot different.  She had to make sure we were getting where we were suppose to be, thus-the map. 

Our little tour guide checked the map from time to time to make sure we were on the right path.  She made sure to keep it handy, you know, just in case.

 

Of course there was also some dancing going on.  You didnt doubt it did you?

Avery really enjoyed Uncle Johnny.  She wanted to go where ever he was going.  Once I told her that her mama was going some place, and I was going somewhere else.  So I asked her who she wanted to go with Mama, or Nonna?  She said I wanna go where Uncle Johnny's going. :)

I really LOVE this picture of my mom with her Great Granddaughter behind her.

Once again, I will say it.  The zoo was GREAT.

The visit went by very fast.  I hate that the visits are few and far between.  On the trip up Casey was talking about how long it had been since she had seen Grandma.  She said how she was going to just enjoy the visit and while she was there she planned to just "soak Grandma up"  I like how Casey put it, we "soaked it up" while we were there. 

Speaking of "soaking it up"...