Hogle Zoo

We had wanted to take Raylee to the zoo for her birthday, but it didn't end up working out so when Corey had a day off and we had nothing to do we decided to head down to the Hogle Zoo. This was Raylee's first time at the zoo and she absolutely loved it.

We ended up down there just in time to see the baby elephant. We also saw a baby giraffe as well as a baby tiger.

The giraffe's were Raylee's favorite and they were the animal that she wanted to go back to see.

The reptile house was rather stinky so Corey walked around like this...

Can you go to the zoo and not get a picture at the gorilla wall? I was surprised Raylee cooperated like she did since there were tons of people around waiting for their turn at the wall.

After we looked at all the animals we went in the gift shop to look around. Corey couldn't help but try on these hats.

Camping at Hoop Lake

This year over labor day we went camping with Corey's family up at Hoop Lake. This is a lake that his family used to go to when Corey was little, but they hadn't been for quite awhile, and Corey was pretty excited to go back up there. I was just excited to actually go camping this year since our earlier camping attempt over my birthday was unsuccessful. The weather ended up being perfect and Raylee was in seventh heaven up there with all those rocks.

This kids had lots of fun painting rocks a couple of different times. It was quite the mess but kept them entertained for quite awhile.

Corey's brother and brother in law brought up four wheelers which were of course a huge hit. The kids had a blast just playing on them in between rides.

Corey was really sweet and offered to get Raylee asleep for her nap every day, although I'm pretty sure it was just an excuse to take a few naps himself :).

Some people came up to go horse back riding and were nice enough to let Raylee check out their horses. She was very nervous and wouldn't even pet the horse so when the people offered to let Raylee have a ride we thought we had better not since it would probably end up with a lot of screaming.

And what's a camping trip without fishing? The guys went fishing as much as they could and caught tons of fish.

The highlight of the trip was definitely when Raylee reeled in her first fish. I don't think she really knew what she was doing until the fish actually came out of the water.

I of course wanted to get a picture of Raylee with her fishie, but when Corey was holding it up by her she just kept grabbing it. Yuck! There was lots of hand washing after that!

We stayed for four nights which is the longest time I have been camping in a long time and it was tons of fun! We will definitely be heading up there again!

Two!

On August 27th my baby girl turned two! How did this happen? I know for a fact that it can't have been two years since Raylee was born. She was a lucky girl and got to celebrate her birthday on three different days.

The Sunday before her birthday we celebrated with my family at my parents house. It was a last minute decision to celebrate it that day, so she just ended up with cupcakes, but she didn't seem to mind. She did really good at blowing out her candles and loved it so much that we had to relight them three times so that she could keep blowing them out, and she probably would have done it all night if we had let her.

While we were all eating our cupcakes Raylee reached for something in the middle of the table and forgot that her cupcake was in front of her and ended up smashing it all over her jammies.

On her actual birthday we didn't do too much since Corey's store was just opening and he had to be there pretty much the whole day. Luckily he got to come for a few hours in the afternoon and Raylee got to open her presents.

Then for the rest of the day she just got to play with all her new stuff, including play dough

and she also went swimming out in the backyard

and ran through the sprinklers which she surprisingly loved.

On the Sunday after her birthday we had all of Coreys family over for dinner and a little party. Raylee had tons of fun playing with all her cousins, especially Dusty who she just adores right now. She follows him everywhere and he is sweet enough to let her follow along and to play with her.

After opening lots more presents she got to blow out her candles again, but none of my pictures worked. Luckily I had taken a picture of the cake earlier, but have decided that cake decorating is definitely not my forte! Oh well, at least it tasted good!

She definitely got enough presents from everyone over the three days to last her until Christams (we hope!) and she had tons of fun! Hopefully this next year will go by a little so slower than the last!