What a week it has been in our house! I can’t believe that tomorrow is the start of June and the last day of the school year for our kindergartner. We had a great memorial day weekend and loved getting to spend the extra day together. Josh hasn’t had a weekday off work since he started his new job in January so we were thrilled to have some bonus time with him!
Our sweet Eli finished 3 year old preschool on Thursday. He is so sad about the year being over and will really miss his wonderful teachers. This year was his first experience in a school program and we had no idea what to expect. We were SO proud of him and can’t believe how much he has grown up in one year. He has made some wonderful friends and has matured and developed a love for school. He’s already asking when school starts again!
I think I’ve mentioned before how my older boys are really getting into learning about animals so this memorial day we drove to the Henry Villas Zoo in Wisconsin. We haven’t been on a long trip like that without one of our families to help since the twins were born and we had a total blast. Caleb has been obsessed with this animal encyclopedia we got him for Easter and we have all been enjoying reading about different animals that we don’t have at our local zoo. When the boys found out they were going to get to see a rhino, red pandas, a tiger, a polar bear and a grizzly bear they were totally pumped. Obviously the long drive with four kiddos wasn’t the easiest but it was so worth it.
They had two grizzly bears that were brothers and those little guys loved to play. They wrestled and ran around with each other and Eli loved watching them. We know a little something about brothers playing in this house. 😉
We went back to look at the polar bear three different times and got to see him do something new each time. Right before we left the zoo, we got to see him swimming in his water and even as an adult I thought that was amazing.
Briefly considered leaving these 3 crazies in the cage. Ha!
If you look closely, you can see the adorable prairie dogs. There were a lot of little babies and we sat and watched them forever. This was for sure Luke and Reid’s favorite exhibit. They kept shrieking and pointing at them and absolutely did not want to leave.
One of Caleb’s favorite pages in his encyclopedia is the stingray/mantaray page. We found a river stingray and that just about made his day.
The rhino was hands down our favorite to see. The boys looked at this picture and were certain the rhino turned and smiled for the picture.
The only thing we didn’t get to see were the tigers who were feeling a little shy that day. Honestly, this zoo was amazing. They have free admission and animals that we had never seen before. Our kiddos are already asking when we can go back.
After the zoo, we headed over to the little beach which was another win.
Luke was pretty sure this was the best place EVER. A giant sandbox all for him!
We played for awhile at a nearby park and then made the drive home. Luke and Reid were complete troopers. It was hot at the zoo and pretty crowded, so we couldn’t really let them run around like they wanted to which they weren’t big fans of and I can’t really blame them! The loved the beach and the park and held it together pretty well for 20 month-olds running on no naps!
Sunday and Monday we spent a little time with family at a graduation and a birthday party and then came home to tackle this mess.
See all those purplish braches/bushes? Yeah those are full of giant thorns (and aren’t that pretty). This is right in front of our house and while they provided some nice privacy from the street, I could not handle pulling anymore baseballs out of those thorns or being afraid of my kids falling in them. They HAD to go. Turns out there were 8 bushes under there which was no easy task to cut down and dig up but we are so glad we did. Josh and I are working hard on a bunch of stuff on the front of the house and I’m excited to share when we are finished.
We had a great week- hope you did too!