Our First Camping Trip

On Saturday May 19th we decided we would try Z out camping.  The girl loves the outdoors so we thought she would love it.  We drove about an hour to Nolin Lake State Park.  It is beautiful up there and it was pretty warm but not too hot.  Being the weekend before Memorial Day there were not to many other people camping.  We got a great spot overlooking the lake and it was completely shaded.  Zoë had a ton of fun walking around.  She got her suit on and played in the lake for a little while.  A group of geese with little baby geese came strolling though our camp site a few times and this was one of Zoë favorite parts.  She loves babies a lot right now.  Another favorite moment was when we went down to the marina and feed the fish.  She still a week later is asking for "Fishy's".  She had her first toasted marshmallows, we didn't do Smores as I forgot to put the chocolate in the cooler and it was melted.  Pine cones littered our camp site and Z loved them.  She collected most of them and put them in a hole at the bottom of a tree.  The tent was another great place for her to play, our tent has a doggy door with a tiny dog room which was a great hiding place.  The sunset right over the lake in front of us and Z learned to say sunset and watch her first one.  At Dusk we walked down to the lake and Daddy showed us how to skip rocks.  Zoë and I are not any good at this but had fun watching Daddy.  Bedtime went really well and it was so nice to sit next to the fire outside, it had been such a great day.

We all were fast asleep then at about 1:30 Z woke up screaming!  We had other campers close by and well even the ones not so close I am sure heard her.  I tried to calm her down by reading to her, rocking her, singing, even played some videos and games on my phone.  Nothing worked.  I took her for a walk to the bathroom which got her to stop crying but by that time we had decided to go home.  Derek broke down camp and we stuffed it all in the car and headed home.  I do not know for sure what happened but I think she just woke up kinda scared.

  

Kentucky Down Under!

Olivia and Karla treated Zoë and I to a day at Kentucky Down Under.  We had a Blast!  As soon as we arrived we were greeted my a beautiful male Peacock.  I got to feed birds from my hand.  Zoë got to pet an Emu and a Mama Kangaroo.  They had a lot of different kinds of birds, some that danced, some that laughed, and some that talked.  There was a cave tour that we cut short since Olivia and Zoë wanted to run free and touch the inside of the cave which is not only unsafe for them but damages the well preserved cave.  Also we watched a sheep dog herd some sheep, this was not very interesting to Zoë or Olivia but Karla and I thought it was pretty cool.

One year and one half

At 18 months old Zoë weights 24 lbs. and is 34 inches tall.  She loves to dance and her favorite song is "The Wheels on the Bus" but really all she wants me to say is:  "...and the seats go bump bump bump" all so she can jump up and down which she does when she wants me to sing it, and also while I am singing it.  Cheese is still her favorite food, but tomatoes are a close second.  If Daddy gives her anything that is automatically her favorite no matter what.  Birds are her favorite animals and she gets excited to look for them and point at them, she has come to realize it is pointless to try and catch them.  Currently she is cutting 4 more teeth, I think that will just leave a couple more teeth to go.  She is showing a lot of interest in both dress up and playing house.  When she is really mad and crying she starts to clap her hands which is kinda funny that she already knows how to get her aggression out.  Her list of words is very long and she does a good job to attempt to repeat any word I ask her too.  She is working on getting sentences together, the two word sentences she does do usually are in Yoda:  "Truck, Dada's".  Also at night she will ask for one more book about 100 times.  She does this by holding up one finger and says:  "One, one.  Book.  One.  More".  My dear daughter is also now obsessed with "Drive" which when she says she puts her hands up like she is driving a car.  Drive means she wants to get in the car and honk the horn a few times then crawl around the inside of the car.  My wild child is always full of energy and loves adventures.  She adores animals and wants to hug and kiss any she sees.  Zoë is strong and determined with lot of sweetness mixed in.  I do foresee some serious verbal scuffs in our future, as she is very clever in her actions already.

Dancing!

Phoenix!!!

It was so great to see my Brothers and Parents!  I also got meet my future sister-in-law Tabitha and see my niece SydNee who I have not seen in almost 5 years.  We spent most of the trip visiting and giggling with Zoë.  All of us got a good amount of swimming and eating in too.

Sharing a drink with SydNee

Zoë had a blast in the pool!  She got to swim with the big girls and acquired a few new suits while at Grandma's.  One morning Z and Grandma spent a while with their feet in the pool splashing and having a great time.

Jumping into the pool!

This is my favorite photo of the week!

After this week she now has a lot of swimsuits

Picking Grapefruit and Grape Tomato's always made Z very happy as that meant she got to eat them too.

Scottsdale

One of the days we drove to Scottsdale and did a little shopping and site seeing in Old Town.

The Grandma's

The Grandpa's

The Fam

Someone got pink cowboy boots and a hat

Phoenix Zoo

Us ladies went to the Phoenix Zoo and had lunch in Tempe one day.  At the zoo we saw two baby calf that had been born just a couple hours prior.  Also Z got really close to one of her favorite animals a Duck that really liked NaNa.  We also saw a Black Swan and the biggest turtle I have ever seen.  The Zoo was so big after two hours we gave up it was way to hot and we were way to hungry.  We also got a little lost once too.  Maybe next year we can see the other half of the zoo.

A little peoples play area

Z loved this bird

New baby calf

The tortoise shell on the right is the size of the giant tortoise.

The biggest Turtle ever!

Hi Duck!

The Plane

Sooooo

Ya that plan of mine did not really go as planned, which of course I figured would be the case.  We left Bowling Green around 6 pm which is about the only thing that followed my "Plan".  Zoë did sleep about 2 of the 3 and a half hour drive to Derek's parents in Dalton Georgia.  Once there she would not go back to sleep and the only thing that would keep her from crying was watching videos on my phone.  Finally she fell asleep about 3 am and then woke up about 5 am.  I got her back to sleep about 7 am just in time for me to have an anxiety attack.  I took a shower, composed myself then tried to figure out if it was best to let her sleep or wake her up so she could nap later before the flight.  Finally decided to wake her up about 9:30 am.  She was happy as could be and had Aunt Misha and Uncle Stephen to play with.  She slept about an hour or a little more on the drive down to Atlanta.

We got through the airport fast and got some food, which Z ate a lot of.  She had a blast wiggling while she walked around our gate.  Once we loaded on the plane she had fun waving to the guys on the tarmac then got embarrassed and turned away when one waved back.  She was so hyper I could barely hang onto her while she flipped and flopped around.  She has become very clingy to me so she wouldn't let anyone else hold her for very long.  The Cheerios necklace lasted for a little bit mostly she would try and feed the photo of Blu in the little photo album I made her.  All the apps and videos I downloaded on my phone were useless for the most part.  One of the apps "Peekaboo Barn" did last for a little bit.  The one thing that took her attention the longest was stickers, she would stick them on her face, my face and her shirt.  Some of the toys she played with, but mostly she literally just flipped and flopped around while babbling.  When we started to descend she had fun looking out the window trying to find Grandma and Grandpa's house.  When we touched down she said "Weeeee Weeeee" and made her Wow That's Cool face.  Sadly we arrived 15 minutes early which for some reason meant sitting on the tarmac in the plane for an extra 30 minutes.  She spent that time playing peekaboo with the young girl sitting behind me.  When we made it to baggage claim something happened to our entire flights bags and it took them an hour to deliver them.  This is when Z started to get pretty pissed, how could you blame her I was super pissed.  She was in the Ergo on my back leaning back trying to get out.  It was funny our whole flight was stomping around and rumors kept starting "Ya I heard they got delivered down on 4" "They didn't get them off the flight before it left."  We did get our bags and did not get a reason for the delay.  I really thought Z would get extra mad when I took her straight out of the Ergo to get strapped into a car seat, but the opposite happened she was laughing and chatting up a storm for Grandma.

Talking to Blu

We had a late flight home, arriving in Atlanta at 11 pm.  Zoë was a world calmer on this flight.  And the bonus was the flight was only half full so Z and I had a row all to ourselves at the end.  Derek sat with us the first half of the flight and Z sat and watched Calliou and Spongebob for a while.  Then she played with her toys for a while.  I got her two new books while in Phoenix, and she loved them.  I read them a few times each.  Of course we played with stickers again.  I wish they would have turned the lights in the cabin off sooner because as soon as they did she started to fall asleep about the last hour of the flight.  She slept and stayed asleep until these bitches on the tram to baggage claim started yelling, then the tram stopped for a couple minutes.  I got glares from the other people on the tram for a screaming child located on my back.  She calmed down and was fine going through the rest of the airport, then fell back to sleep once we started driving.  She did pretty good that night and slept in until about 10 am.

She did great traveling and I am glad as she will be flying a minimum of once a year for many years to come.  I may kick myself for saying this but I really feel like this age until about 2.5 would be the most difficult to fly with.  When we flew last year and she was 4 months old it was really easy and she slept or nursed most of the flight.