Taylor Family Fun: Life Lately

Monday

We celebrated my birthday with the family on Monday night.

The kids picked out presents for me - I got a necklace, earrings, a bracelet, some running socks and Sour Patch kids. I also got money to buy a chair for my bedroom when I find what I want.

Presents from Kent's family plus a Hobby Lobby gift card

Ice cream for dessert

Tuesday

We ran some errands, got Panera take out and went to visit Granddaddy.

Party planning for Ella's friend party next week -

"Bring your Baby" Party!

Working on place settings for the girls and their babies

We had a funeral visitation to attend and then we celebrated my birthday with Sugar Plume dessert.

Audrey and Crawford came to show mom and dad their cruise album and help us celebrate!

Wednesday

We had a day trip with church to Aloha Safari

First stop was the petting/feeding area - the baby goats were so cute!

Several staff members were holding animals the kids could pet - Ella wasn't scared of the snake at all.

Caleb and a baby goat

Ready for the Safari Ride

The zebras - most of the animals are rescue animals

Safari Ride - they had loaves of bread and you could throw out bread to the animals throughout the ride

We got so close to this giraffe. He would eat carrots from your hand, mouth, head, whatever.

His name was Stretch and he had been rescued from a man who tried to keep him in a garage which stunted his growth.

With the giraffe

He ate a carrot off Caleb's head and his hair was crazy!

Ella loved the baboons

Feeding the monkeys thru the pipe - the monkeys would stand there and wait and rattle the pipe to get the food to come out.

Caleb and a big snake behind him

The bear was cute and put on quite a show playing with this tire and cooling off

With the parrot

Part of the crew by the entrance

This bird loved to have its head scratched

The bear walking around

Tigers

We went back to feed the giraffe - showing how tall he was.

The staff said he was about 5 ft and 1,000 pounds less than he should be due to his previous living conditions.

Eating right out of Ella's hand...

or off the top of Caleb's head

Part of the group rubbing his head

We went back and rode the safari ride again on the opposite side to see a different view

Some animals were just roaming around

Camels who used to be used as part of a nativity

Watching the monkeys perform

Of course the kids wanted to play on the playground before they left

She found a peacock feather

Back to feeding the goats

With my sweaty crew before we left

With part of the group before we left

Part of the group with our sweet bus driver

We stopped and ate at Wendys and Ella crashed!

Thursday

$4 movie - Alvin and the Roadchip

With some of our BSF buddies visiting the bunnies

We put them all in the cage :)

"Welcome Back" party for Jenna

Caleb wouldn't take his SWO bracelet off til Jenna came home so we let her cut it off

Love these girls and glad to have Jenna back!

Jenna's shadow - showing her some videos from camp

Friday

Since the kids have been home more this summer, I have totally let the play room go.

This is how it looked so I dumped the few toys that were still in a container in the middle of the floor and we organized and put everything back in the right place.