Gaah — where does time go??

Two weeks ago, Jason and I ventured down to Sioux Falls for the weekend to celebrate Hannie’s 6th (!) birthday with family. Road trips are the only time I give myself a valid excuse to eat fastfood like this, but I do kinda really like chicken fingers.

Hannie saved the best present for last: the one from me (and Jason, I suppose). When she started to realize what it was, that was when I knew I had won this round.

Barbie guitar! It was really worth every penny.

We went swimming at the hotel/waterpark in the afternoon. Hannie was standing on her tiptoes in the hot tub — almost tall enough! She also asked me to go down the big slide with her. I was a little nervous that I might fail and something bad would happen, but it went alright! But I didn’t take her up on an offer to do it a second time.

Hannie also got birthday dessert when all of the hotel-goers went out for dinner in the evening. Can you believe she didn’t share (except with her parents)?

Since it was a quick weekend trip and the drive home was another four hours, I decided that Jason and I needed to do a little tourism before hitting the road again. First he finally had a moment alone with the Terminator game.

We went to the Great Plains Zoo and Jason decided we should see the touring dinosaurs exhibit.

(Weird experience because I’m pretty sure I saw this exhibit — or a very similar one — in Hawaii almost six years ago.)

That giraffe was drooling everywhere. Incidentally, I was telling every single animal in this zoo that I was there to rescue them. Unfortunately I only have a tiny Hyundai…

I told these sheep I would rescue them, but also that I have knit their cousins.

I totally giggled as I took this photo. Poor little meerkat just trying to have bath time. We are definitely taking these guys home someday.

We ended our zoo tour with a peek at the Asian cats, who were all sleeping. It figures!