"Zoo, Joey"

Last week, Barb asked if we wanted to meet them for a morning at the zoo. Going out with both kids by myself is still a little intimidating to me, but Okinawa in some ways makes it easier given that I feel safer here and that Rowan can run a little farther from me without me worrying too much. So, we left around 9:30 and set off for the zoo. Rowan stayed awake on the way there and Boden slept in the car...perfect start :) We pulled into the parking lot at the exact same time. We decided to buy year passes since it was so cheap and we forsee this outing happening more often in the future. Rowan was so excited to meet Joey at the zoo!

It is so cute to see these boys together. "Look Rowan!"

 After we walked through all of the animals, we decided we could go for a few rides. They again are affordable and fun, and the kids had the time of their lives. Rowan chose to ride the "giraffe" (I'm putting in quotes all the things that Rowan actually says to help document some of his words). He was a little hesitant when I first put him on, but then he LOVED it. This smile was on his face the entire ride.

After the carousel, we rode the train that he had gone on the time before. The magic was still there though. Rowan was starting to fall asleep in the stroller on our way over there (he was so tired this morning for some reason), and when we said we were going to ride the train, he sat up tall and yelled, "CHOO-CHOO!" They did this with no prompting. I guess they're ready for some rollercoasters :)

 Boden did amazingly. He slept for most of the animals, then I fed him while we ate lunch (PB&J on homemade bread thanks to Barb) next to the elephants. He was happy and awake for awhile and then crashed again :)

And finally, because the boys had been SO good all day, we sprung for some elephant ice cream drinks :) There is a baby elephant at the zoo right now (it is SO cute) so there were a lot of elephant themed things.

 Of course, there was a photo shoot (not only by me :)

 And messes were made! Rowan was crazy dirty (they had played in the sand/dirt just prior to this and then got covered in ice cream. Somehow, he managed to keep his clothes clean though, so with a wipe in the end he looked pretty good :)

 And then they "hold hands" as we walked out to our cars.

It was seriously such a perfect morning, I couldn't have asked for them to have been better behaved. I felt like I had an extremely successful trip with two kids that added a bit to my confidence in being able to go out and do things again. It also made me excited to be home enough to be able to do things like this more often. And to top it off, Rowan fell asleep on the way home and successfully transferred asleep into his bed when we got home. Icing on the cake ;) We wore these guys out!