our weekend...

my entire family (on my mom's side) headed down

to st. louis because my mom's brother 

(who lives in seattle) and his wife and son

were in st. louis because she was running

 the marathon.

it isn't often that we see them, as you can imagine, so

we took the opportunity to spend some time with

them by driving the short distance to st. louis. 

we had lots of fun! 

friday evening we all went to pf changs. 

afterwards, olivia made wishes in the fountain.

she wished for a puppy that didn't poop

or pee... i wished that she would stay

this cute and fun forever...

that night they swam in the tiny hotel pool.

i don't think i've seen a smaller pool except 

for the one i blow-up for my kids every summer.

on saturday we went to the st. louis zoo.

oh what an adventure.... we were planning

on spending just a few hours there and spend

the rest of the day with the whole family. 

since we had such a large group, we never

stayed together and most of the time i was

stopping to nurse or waiting on other people

or hurrying to find our groups to make

sure they had my children.

we got there at 9:15am and because of

how busy the zoo was, we parked ridiculously 

far away and got to the zoo entrance i think around

10:30. and we didn't leave until 4:30!

we had lots of fun though!

(and now i will flood you with a ton of pictures...)

on our lovely 'stroll' to the zoo...

my uncle and his son, dylan.

(seeing that it's a zoo, you're going to see a lot of

people's butt's cause that's how i roll. 

i like to take a lot of in-action shots)

my youngest brother and sister...

my other sister and her little family...

it was pretty warm and she loved poking her little

piggies out to get some air.

and here is some more cuteness... he was annoyed 

with me taking his picture and he finally just gave

me this look as if to say,

 'here you go mom! go away!'

a lovely candid shot...

(yes he is picking his nose)

my monkeys with some real monkeys...

more butts!

some sweet sister moments...

i ♥ him...

we had some very sleepy moments. 

(waiting for the train)

and even more butts... 

this is my grandpa. his great. it was a special

little moment for me...

another special moment. 

a little family catch-up amongst the chaotic day to 

talk about what we had seen and done...

by the end of our long day we all felt 

a bit like this...

we were all exhausted and

ready to go to back to the hotel and just relax.

and that's exactly what we did. 

the next day most of the family had gone 

back home so we took the opportunity to 

go to a gym that had an indoor waterpark

and spend some family time together. 

it's just what we all needed to re-group before

heading home to start our week.

we thoroughly enjoyed our trip and loved

seeing my uncle and aunt and little dylan.

wish we could see them more often.

we could just move out to seattle...

i'd be ok with that.