A Trip to the Zoo and a Wedding, Too!

Whew! This has been a busy week for us!  On Saturday, July 18, I was a bridesmaid in my friend Stefanie's wedding in St. Joe, so Jack and Joel came to watch Mommy walk down the aisle. Unfortunately, the boys spent the entire ceremony in the lobby because Joel was a bit loud and did not want to sit still. Oh well! At least now we know that our little man isn't quite ready to attend sophisticated social functions. Such is the life of a toddler. Fortunately, he did take time out of his busy schedule to take a cute picture with Mommy before heading to the reception. 

The day after the wedding, we headed to Omaha for a trip to the Henry Doorley Zoo and the Omaha Children's Museum. Joel really thought he was big stuff walking around the zoo wearing his monkey backpack. 

We ended up spending two days at the zoo during our three-day trip, so we got to see most of the exhibits. Joel loved all the animals, but he especially liked watching the monkeys playing and exploring the aquarium. I'll spare you the dozens of pictures of zoo animals that I took (I plan to make them into a book for Joel), but I will share a few more zoo pictures: 

We also visited Omaha's fabulous Children's Museum while we were in town. Joel was a bit overwhelmed with a lack of nap and by all the very loud children running around the museum, but he really found his comfort zone at the water activity center. 

The museum also had a very cool exhibit all about the human body that had a Sesame Street theme. This, of course, was right up Joel's alley. Here's a great picture of Joel and Jack in "Elmo's World." 

Overall, we had a lot of fun on our little family vacation. But of course, Joel was really the happiest when he had his "naas" (a.k.a. "snacks"). This child can really put away the animal crackers!