WAY TOO LONG

This week I headed over to Knoxville, this visit was a long time coming! When I was just a young thing, about 13. Don came to live with my family for a while. He was like the big brother that I never had. He listened to me when I was sad, and gives some of the best hugs goin'. Really, when trying to explain our relationship to anyone... I usually refer to him as a brother. After 18 years of not seeing each other, we reunited! It was such a great feeling to see each other again. I got to meet his wife and 2 of his 3 children. (the oldest was at scout camp)
This is my buddy Aiden. We were pals. :-) He is such a sweet heart!

Rachel, such a pretty girl. She had to pose it up for every shot. One of these days I'll get her without some "cool girl" pose going on!
Liza and Rachel made fast friends. Don's wife, Heather and I surprised Don with my visit. He knew that I was moving to TN, but didn't know when. We cooked up this little surprise for him and had him cover his eyes till he got to where I was. It was fun to see the look on his face. It was like he couldn't believe that I was standing there. It was fun. The kids and i stayed at their place for 2 nights. On day 2 we took the kids to this great park where they had a little river to walk in and swings and all kinds of fun stuff.
They have 3 dogs of their own and they were dog sitting 2 more, so my kiddies were in HEAVEN!! 5 puppies to play with.. what more could they want! They absolutely loved this part of the visit, even if it did make them all very very dirty. They were happy.
The 3 girls spent a ton of time playing Bratz in the "cottage". They loved going out there and just setting up their stuff everywhere. Alex got a hold of "Uncle Dons" Harry Potter collection and watched a few of those.

Aiden and I played LIFE. Now he is 4 so we didn't really play life. :-) We counted squares over and over and over. I had to take a picture of him doing this cuz I loved when he would say "Triti turn." When it was my turn. (he is actually saying it here) He was SO funny. No matter what was spun he would turn it to 10 and cheer, "10!" and then count out 10 spaces. So I think I counted to 10 at least 200 times this week. :-) He is so cute and fun to play with. He would even let the other kids in to play so long as they didn't want his orange car, or my red one. Then he would say "boris turn" For Tori, and "kalee turn" for Katie.

Aiden has cochlear implants, he was born profoundly deaf, so this is why I blog about his speech. It is so incredible to me that he can hear and speak. I loved listening to him. What a miracle.
Today, before we headed home I took the kids to the Zoo in Knoxville. It was a very nice zoo. I was glad to remember to ask if they do military discount cuz we got in for 1/2 price! Yeah! We got to go see a bird show, that was SO cool.They had a butterfly pavilion where they lady told us that the kids could hold the butterflies if they didn't touch their wings. The kids loved this!
Here is a shot of all my "WILD ONES". This zoo was quite fun and cool. It was a perfect day to go to the zoo too. The weather was a bit warm and sticky, but not too bad considering it's July. We got to watch an Elephant take a bath, which was really cool. but it was behind glass so I didn't get a very good picture at all. It was so cool tho, to watch the keeper spray and scrub this giant animal. My personal favorite part was when the keeper stuck the whole hose nozzle in the elephants trunk and she sucked it up in there and then sprayed it into her mouth. Just to see this beast guzzle the water out of the hose like that was amazing! The Elephant would lift up its feet, one at a time so that she could scrub them... it was so cool.
They also had a petting zoo like none I have ever seen before. The kids were given a little hair brush on the way in and were instructed to brush the goats on the back, and not pull their horns. All over the floor in this place were goats in "spa mode" they were all just laying around waiting to be brushed. It was so funny. Usually a petting zoo is almost a scary place as the goats are trying to eat your clothes and head butt your toddlers. Not these guys. They were so sweet.
Katie decided that this guy needed his beard brushed. He liked that! It was SO cute.
After seeing all the animals. Playing on the slides, watching the bird show, playing in a giant sand box: the kids got to cool off in this great little river with these squirting frogs. It was really nice.

We had such a lovely visit with our "cousins" and a great day at the zoo. We hope they will come to see us here soon.