Staycation 2014!

M's birthday was this week and we wanted to do something extra fun because he had some time off work to use. We thought about vacation options... but realized that having a 1-year-old who is finicky about sleeping anywhere but his own bed and still takes two naps each day would make any vacation plans more challenging than this whiny pregnant lady was up for attempting! So we decided to pretend we were on vacation here in our own city. And we had a great time!!

On our first day, we went to explore the dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point. Of all the things we did, it was my absolute favorite because watching A was fantastic. He kept running from exhibit to exhibit and saying, "Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!" He was holding M's hand through a lot of the museum and was pulling him along to see everything. I loved seeing both boys so thrilled!

We had such a great time that we decided to get season passes! With our passes, we headed over to the farm at Thanksgiving Point as well. A loves animals and has learned how to make almost all of the farm animal sounds, so he was enthralled seeing the "moo's" and "neigh's" and "baa's" and "quack quack's." He even got to ride a pony! It was so cute to see a tiny boy on a tiny horse!

The next day, we went to the Hogle Zoo. A loved this too because it was more animals plus tons of space to run! He recently loves running on inclined surfaces and says "Up! Up!" or "Down, down, down!" depending on which direction he is going. And the paths at our zoo are lots of inclines, so he was in heaven!

Lately, A loves counting things... but he only knows the number "two." Sometimes as we walk with him, we hold his hands and say "one, two, three, JUMP!" and swing him. He loves it. And now he likes to encourage us to do this while holding our hands by saying "two, two, two, GO!" It is ridiculously adorable... even though he wanted to do it over and over again throughout the zoo!

Finally, our third adventure was to the recently opened Living Planet Aquarium. This was a lot of fun too but I think A's legs were sore from running all around the zoo the day before, because he was whiny and wanted to be carried almost the entire time! His favorite exhibits were the ones with sharks, big fish, and/or ducks. Although every other kid seemed fascinated by the penguins, he couldn't be bothered by them and looks annoyed in any pictures I could get of him! He can be such a funny, opinionated kid!