Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium

On Monday, my Mother-in-law, my sister-in-law, Katy, Joey and I went to the Point Defiance Zoo. My MIL and Katy have never been and I have, but such a long time ago.

Joey as been to the San Francisco Zoo, but this time he was way more interested in the animals.

Weirdly enough though, there were not a ton of animals there at all. I don't know if they were sleeping or it was an off day, but they seemed to be missing.
My MIL even said so cutely...."where are the animals at?"

Non the less we had such a great time. Katy rode a camel and Joey insisted on calling her "Kiwi" the entire time. Poor Joey had to sit in a stroller most of the time, mainly b/c he has a tendency of running away. When we did have him out of the stroller and into his 'puppy pack leash' he tried to climb into some of the exhibits. Yeah...that would be my son. =)

The animals we did see where really cool and they had a really neat Kid's area for Joey to run around in. Although I feel really bad for all the kids he "ran over" trying to look at everything. =)

Climbing out of the shark teeth, he wouldn't pose for the picture.


Grandma did a good job at posing. Doesn't she look fabulous?


Looking at the ginormous fish tank!


That cloudy residue you see would be the Walrus pooping


Looking at the Dolphins


Petting the goat at the kid's petting zoo.


Trying to kiss the goat. Oh geez!!!


Tunnel shot


Climbing out of the Sea Urchin Thingy


"Hanging" out with "Kiwi" on the spider web.


Waiting for one of our collector pennies to come out of the machine.


Riding the carousel


So I totally made fun of my MIL for bringing this hat to the Zoo, but guess who ended up wearing it the entire time???? Oh yes, that would be ME!!!

Seriously???

Today Joey and I were getting ready to leave to meet up with Carly and her two kids at Target for some good ol' coupon shopping. (I had some major deals I needed to take advantage of!) While I was on the computer to print out some last minute coupons I asked Joey to go grab his shoes. He looks at me and says, "shoes" and nods his head and leaves the room. He comes back a short while later with my mascara opened and this all over his eye!



Seriously???? =)
All he could do was give me this much bewildered look and ask to wash his hands.
Joey....you are so funny!
I guess its a good thing he didn't even put it on right? Am I right? =)

One of those "ahhhhh" moments

Last night Joey woke up just as we were going to bed. If you know us we stress the importance of Joey sleeping in his own bed. That way he doesn't rely on us having to lay down with him every night, but also b/c its nice for us to stretch out in our bed...plus Joey is a BED HOG! However last night, we all got a treat of sleeping in our bed all together. Josh has been getting home late from work and hadn't seen Joey for awhile so this was a good way to catch up on snuggles.

Naturally, I could not fall asleep b/c Mr. Joey decided to keep moving around and taking up more than his fair share of the room. =) But I was able to sneak out of the room to grab the camera to take advantage of an "oh so cute" moment.

Photos of the Day

Only Joey would decide to bring his cell phone and sunglasses to the dinner table!


Joey probably loves the vacuumn cleaner as a toy way more than any of his real toys.
P.S. nice hair



When did he become shy?


He looks like such a big boy in this picture!

If Joey could write, he would write this.

A Bedtime Story
By Joey Callon

"Fine! My Mommy makes me go to sleep by myself. I'll show her what a "Big Boy" I am!

First I will pull off all my blankets, there is no Mommy to make me sleep in my bed.
Second, pile up all my toys next to me, just in case I want to play in the middle of the night.
Lastly, I am going to sleep on the floor! Blanket? check. Georgie? check. Tuckie? check. Lights on? CHECK!

_______________________________________________

*A side note from Mommy

Lately we've been working really hard on Joey being a "big boy" and falling asleep by himself in his "big boy" bed. It's been a very rough 2 months of getting him used to this, but for the last couple of nights I have not had to "lay down" with him and go "nigh nigh" with him. Which let me tell you, going "nigh nigh" with him has involved some very seriously skilled maneuvers to escape out of his room unnoticed and unheard. If this was an Olympic Sport I would be a serious medal contender.

Anyways, I don't mind that Joey stays up for a bit in his room after I leave. He normally turns the light on and then goes right back into his bed with a toy or two. Later on I sneak in and remove the toys and turn the lights off. But for some reason tonight, Joey decided that he would stay up for a long while and play and also sleep on the floor. I just went into his room and found him in the above picture. It was too cute not to take a picture. I couldn't help it!

Silly Joey

These group of pictures made me laugh so much. Joey gets really excited when he jumps and he just happened to be oh so cute. These pics were taken on vacation in Tahoe. Don't worry, the window is locked and Joey is never allowed to play near windows alone or have a bed pushed up to one.

A rare moment

If you know Joey then you know that the kid doesn't just stop everything he is doing to go to sleep. The kid will lead you on, play quietly, or be darn right evasive when it comes to bed time or nap time; which he affectionately calls "nigh nigh."
He is a heavy sleeper, but only after you can trick him into going to bed.

However a couple of evenings ago I gave Joey an early bath and some milk and sat him on Daddy's recliner to watch Monster's Inc. while I cooked dinner. Being my busy self in the kitchen I looked up after an awkwardly long silence coming from the living room only to find Joey completely passed out. A rush of victory and calmness enclosed me and I was so smitten with just how cute he looks when sleep overcomes his youthful busyness.



Of course the next day when he wakes up he realizes he missed out on the cake I baked, so naturally he needed to make up for lost time.

Bad Mom story #2038

So, Joey had a bit of bad luck when it came to a marker tip and his nose.

While nearing the end of our vacation Joey was sitting in his car seat playing with his beloved Color Wonder Markers (you know the ones that only work on color wonder paper?). Well, Joey decided that it would be a good idea to bite off the tips of his markers, I only discovered this when I found marker tips on his car seat. Now I can only assume that this is what happened b/c I was in the drivers seat, but Joey, midway through biting his marker tips decided that it would be a good idea to stick the marker up his nose. That is when he started crying. Upon inspection I thought that he had scratched the inside of his nose and I couldn't see anything up there. Mind you, I still only thought that he had just bitten the tips off and put them in his car seat. For the rest of the trip he was a bit snotty and his nose wheezed a bit while he slept, but he never complained about his nose hurting at all, so I only assumed it was running b/c of the wound healing over.

When we got home, I was able to get a better look up his nose and discovered what appeared to be white and shiny, which could also be confused with straight up baby snot. With a good pass at the nose suction thingy and a couple of attempts at blowing his nose it still didn't look like anything was up with his nose. That is until last Wednesday when we laid down for a nap together. His left nostril was wheezing again, so I decided to pull out the flash light and the nose suction thingy. With him sleeping this made it very easy to get a good look up the ol' nose. Well sure enough there was definitely something up there. I tried getting it out with the bulb, but it didn't work. I called his pediatrician and was able to get in that day.

His doctor attempted to get it out but between 4 of us holding a screaming two year old down the effort was futile. The Ped. referred us to an Ear, Nose, and Throat Doctor. So the next day I took him into the ENT Doctor. Poor Joey had to be strapped down on a board. He was hysterical and the doctor had no such luck either, mainly b/c Joey was struggling and wouldn't hold still. So he suggested surgery as the only way to get it out and since it had been in there for awhile it needed to come out next day.

So of course, in perfect timing Joey had to have surgery the same day I had surgery to have a polyp removed on my uterus. Thanks to great family and friends we were able to do both surgeries back to back and I was able to be there even though I was in a wheel chair and slightly dazed from the anesthesia.

My surgery went well and Josh and I headed across the street to Mary Bridge where they took care of Joey. I have to say though, Joey was very brave. The staff was wonderful and they are very into helping the children adjust in scary situations. For Joey the anesthesia mask was a big obstacle, mainly b/c he had enough of people trying to touch his face, but once they were able to pass that fear they wheeled him into the OR in of course, a red wagon. He toted along his Tuckie, Georgie and his blanket for comfort.

The whole surgery only took about 10 minutes, but we did do a lot of waiting. When they wheeled him back to his room in his bed it looked as if he never had surgery. Aside from a bruise from his IV in his arm and a slight bloody nose, Joey was back to being Joey. 30 minutes after being sedated, had surgery, and in recovery the kid was running around....Naturally. =)

There was no infection and no need for follow up and we all learned a big lesson. Don't let Joey play with markers. =)

The Child Life Specialist was getting him prepped for the OR by tricking him with cool toys.


Mommy and Joey, looking a bit dazed and tired.

Hugs

Heavenly Resort/Gondola Ride

We scored some sweet tickets onto the Gondola up to the Heavenly ski area. We've been on them before but the view is simply breath taking. Even Joey was amazed.

We had planned to go on a different day but the weather did not cooperate. We got all ready to hike and even got into the car when I looked at my Mom and said that maybe it was too cold to go up the lifts. It looked like it was going to rain and thunder as well and we decided there that we didn't want to risk it and get stuck up there if they closed the lifts down. Thankfully we had changed our minds b/c there ended up being a severe weather warning and the lifts did close.

The next day we made it up there. We planned on hiking around a bit, but by the time we got up there and walked a little distance Mr. Joey decided that he wanted to be carried. So Mom plus a 40 pound kid being held didn't add up well so we called it an early day. It was still really cool to be able to go up there again and take in all the beauty. Even though I know it is way more fun to go up on a ski lift when there is actually a bountiful amount of snow, just being there was enough.

Hot August Nights

During our Tahoe vacation we also meandered over Reno to see my Dad at Hot August Nights. We also had to find a Firestone to get my tire fixed b/c apparently a large rock did a number on my rim. I discovered a flat tire on the way to the Lake one day, but was glad that I noticed it right away before I got to far from our timeshare.

We headed to Reno first thing in the morning and met up with my dad at the Silver Legacy for a breakfast buffet. After eating we wandered through the show of old classic cars. The place was packed an hour after opening so we headed into the convention center to hang out with my dad for a bit at his booth. He sells car lifts (hint hint, if you ever need one).

Joey sitting on Grandpa's lift.


He would only sit there though with the Grape Propel water Grandpa gave him.



"I see a dust trail following an Old Red Nova"
While kind of an inside joke between my friend Cathy and I, I couldn't help but take this picture. During the summer of 2005 when Cathy and I worked as resident hall slaves at SMU (conference assistants) =) we fondly fell in love with "Fast Cars and Freedom" by Rascal Flatts which mentions an Old Red Nova. While we loved the song so much I never knew exactly what a Nova looked until I saw one at Hot August Nights.

Nevada State Museum and Virginia City

While vacationing the three of us hit up the Nevada State Museum in Carson City, the capitol of Nevada. The museum was very cool and unique and described how the valleys and peaks of Nevada where made during millions of years ago.
It was also cool to see all the ghost town back history and wild west stories. We also learned a lot about the Comstocke Lode and how so many people ended up in Nevada.
Joey did so well at the museum. We kept him in the stroller for most of the time for his safety and the safety of the museums items. He sure enjoyed it though and was particularly interested in the model mine that we got to tour underneath the museum.





A couple of days later we visited Virginia City, where a lot of the Comstocke Lode History takes place. Its a neat little town with wooden planks for sidewalks, lots of old saloons, and of course enough tourist shops to empty your pockets out. Every summer since Joey was born we have gone to Virginia City and gotten old time pictures taken of him. They always turn out so cute and this years is no exception. Unfortunately I haven't copied it yet so I will post later.

While there, we pretty much wandered around and gambled a little bit. We went with my Mom's best friend,Pam, my Uncle Paul and Pam's granddaughters, Corrine and Ashley. The girls enjoyed pushing Joey in the stroller and were so good to him.