Some of my family came to visit us last weekend. We were so excited anticipating their arrival. Heath talked about it for a few days leading up.

 Houston made his way into the garage while they were carrying things in and climbed right up into dad's driver seat. He kept saying "whoa, oh, whoa," then started growling. It was pretty funny to see his reaction to a bigger car. Houston loves cars, Heath always liked balls the best, but Houston is definitely a car boy. He'll push one around on the floor happily for an hour sometimes.

 We decided to go to the botanical gardens first thing in the morning. They close in about a month or so, so now would be the time to see it or wait until next year. It was a really nice day, not hot, but not cold, just nicely cool.

 Heath sure loved following around his Uncles.









Matt has fun trying out all the settings on our new camera. As always everything was so beautiful there.

 We fed the fish and watched them open and close their huge mouths. Heath cried when we had to move on. 

 Dallin, Grandma, Heath, Sterling, Me, Houston

 We had a picnic outside the park, then moved on to the zoo.










It was CRAZY there. I'd never seen that many people. I was telling a friend about it later and she reminded me that it was the weekend of the balloon lights so that's probably why there were a lot of extra people. We parked way far away, and walked on up.

So Grandma really wanted to see the new sea lion exhibit, and there was a pretty good line, so we got in.

 I love Dallin's face in this one, it pretty much describes waiting in line. I say that, but it wasn't that bad, we had fun talking and laughing and eating Grandpa's Kettle Corn.

 Heath was kinda crabby from staying up late with all the excitement, but both he and Houston did so good that day with all the dragging around.

 We finally made it in. It's such a neat experience. Very comparable to what it was like to scuba dive, but you'r not wet.

 Heath took this last picture, hence the finger on the lense.

 The chimps put on a pretty good show, playing monkey see monkey do, copying everything the other did.

 The boys really loved the grizzley. Heath said, "It's bear bears daddy!"

 Houston just growled at it very loudly.

 Then we checked out the penguin house, which we had to wait in line for again, everyone I talk to has said they've never had to wait in line for the penguins, that's how busy they were.

 It's pretty cool in there. The penguins are so cute, they almost look like robots the way they move.

This little guys was out on the edge so naturally Matt held our baby up to him. Houston buzzed his lips at him. Looking back at it, I'm not sure if that was so safe, do penguins attack?

 Not sure how this got our of order, but I think this is such a cute picture of Grandpa and Heath. : )

 Heath didn't like the penguins or the penguin house at all. It was too cold and windy in there for him, and he thought the penguins were creepy.

 He's just SO cute!

 Dallin and Sterling helped Heath "squish" his penny into a Monkey. He was so excited about it, and played with it for days following. They said when they got up to do it they said "Heath would you like a monkey" "No" "a bear" "no" "a penguin" "NO! I want a monkey"

 After we took this a lady loudly said to her children, "No you may not climb onto the seal statue, you're old enough to read, you can see that sign that says 'do not climb on and part of this statue"

Oops! missed that one.

 I think these are all so sweet!

I love him!

 After the zoo the boys went window shopping and we came home for the boys to take a nap and make Houston a birthday cake.

 His birthday wasn't until Monday, but Grandma and Grandpa wanted to celebrate, and well never turn down a reason to eat cake and icecream!

 He is by far the cleanest 1 year old cake eater I've seen. He's always so particular about things, and is really a clean eater until he's finished, then things start flying.

 As usual he did lots of growling.

 Grandma and Grandpa brought presents too!

 This was such a perfect gift, he and Heath both play with it all the time.

Heath got a present too! He was so excited! He's been asking me when his birthday is. I had a big 1 on Houston's on our calendar and Heath wants to know where his is. Since i don't have a calendar for next year yet, i was a bad mommy and told him the star on Christmas was for his birthday. Now he flips to December and says "there's Heaffer's birthday!"





We had so much fun. Its always so wonderful to be with family!