Korea 2014: Week 17 - Vera came to visit

Veronica climbed up onto the toy motorcycle all by herself.  She was really excited.  This picture is fitting because this week my Aunt Vera came to visit.  Vera has a motorcycle and she has short hair too.  

We picked Vera up at the Killeen Airport on Friday.  She came into town as a vacation for her and for me.  She relaxed by taking care of the kids while I relaxed by taking naps and going places by myself.  I went to a goodbye party for Elder and Sister Coombs, shopping, and I went to see X-Men Days of Future Past.  That movie was absolutely wonderful.  It fixed all the emotional trauma that X-Men The Last Stand inflicted on me.  I could really do a whole post all about how much X-Men means to me, but aside from revealing how much of a geek I am, it would also give away a lot spoilers and Brandon hasn't seen the movie yet.  So I'll hold back - for now.

The kids loved playing with Vera.  She brought her i-pad and i-phone and Charlotte and Lydia played with those a lot.  They used them to watch the movie Ice Age and Lydia kept calling the movie "Ice-pad."

Derrick started talking a lot more while Vera was here.  He also got a lot more daring with all the jumping and running that he does around the house.  I'm certain that he learns best when he is moving.  Vera spent a lot of time saying things like Jump Jump Jump while Derrick jumped off of the furniture.  Then a little bit later he started repeating things that sounded a lot like "Jump."  He also said Wowwa (water) and Ah-pa (apple).  On Saturday night we watched Charlotte's Web and Derrick started repeating animal noises after I said them.  I'd say, "Derrick say Mooo" and he'd say "mmmmmmm."  He also said aaaaa for baa, quic for quank, kkk for oink, and a few more that I can't remember.  It was amazing.  Usually he doesn't repeat anything I say so I was really excited.  And then as if all that wasn't enough he said, uh (up) without prompting as he walked up some stairs on Sunday.  I'm thinking of buying him a little trampoline and seeing if jumping on that leads to any more words.

Veronica was so cute with Vera.  Veronica got to the point where she would wave her hands excitedly whenever she saw Vera.  I loved watching them interact.

On Saturday we took a walk to the tire swing park.  While we were there Lydia stepped on a fire ant nest that was under an innocent looking pile of wood chips.  Poor Lydia was bit by at least 30 ants.  The one positive thing about the whole experience is that she finally had a legitimate excuse to wear lots of band aids.

It started raining on Saturday night and I let the kids play in the rain before bathtime.

The kids have been looking forward to Vera's visit because we've been planning to take her to our favorite zoo, the Cameron Park Zoo in Waco.  This was our third visit.  Here are all the kids excited to be finally going to the zoo.

I've already posted a lot about this zoo before, and I'm planning a whole travel blog post about it, so I wont go into a lot of detail about it in this post.  As always we had a wonderful time.  Here are a few of the high lights.

Derrick got to see giant turtles.  (or maybe it's a torturous.  I don't know - nor do I really care)

Derrick also enjoyed throwing rocks and mud into the water.

We all enjoyed seeing this waterfall.

Charlotte has been asking to see a real buffalo.  I told her we would see some at the zoo.  But the only one we could see was far away.  Char seemed okay with that though.

It started raining during the last half hour of our visit.  It didn't rain hard so it was actually kind of nice and cool.  And the animals were more active.

This elephant was really close to the fence for once.

Usually the lion is a pretty big disappointment.  But this time he was actually walking around.  And then he started roaring - that was really exciting.

I like this picture of Charlotte with the Komodo Dragon.

Derrick walked about half way through the zoo until he got distracted by throwing rocks in the water.  I had to put him in the stroller so that he wouldn't spend the next hour throwing rocks.  Veronica was awake the whole time and loved looking at everything.

I love how curly Lydia's hair gets when the air is humid.

When we were all done we had a little tailgate picnic at the car.  Charlotte had picked out Twinkies (they were really Little Debbie Cloud Cakes) for one of our snacks.

We said goodbye to Vera this morning.  She's off to enjoy the rest of her vacation which includes staying in nice hotels and seeing Dolly Parton in concert in several cities.  We are so happy she included us on her trip.  The girls were sad when we dropped Vera off at the airport, but they cheered up when I told them that we would see Vera when we visit Utah later this summer.

This was supposed to be a picture with all the kids, but the older three weren't interested.

The kids played in the rain when we got home from the airport. It was all fun and games until Charlotte got a little hurt.

It was so wonderful to have a little break from reality while Vera was here.  I feel so relaxed after having had a lot of time to myself.  And I don't have to go back to reality quite yet.  In a few days my sister Lindsey is bringing our brother Billy up for a visit.  Yay for family!