A Visit from Auntie Shani

Last weekend we all enjoyed a visit from Hadley's Auntie Shani, and I'm just now sitting down to write about it and get the pictures up. I'm sorry I didn't get to it sooner, I am in the middle of a rather "heavy" homework assignment for my writing class - write a short story that's 10 - 15 pages long. And the scary thing is that we have to bring it to class to be critiqued! I think the only time I wrote 10 - 15 pages was my junior year in high school, and that was with the help of Celena. We had to do some sort of research on the Shenandoah Valley and waited until the last minute to complete a semester long project. I remember she and I being very sad that we had to stay in on a beautiful weekend in May and work on something that had to do with the great outdoors. At least the topic could've been about flip flops or coffee or something I actually enjoy. Oh, but this blog isn't about ME - it's about my daughter, so here we go.

Hadley just loves Shani. When she woke up in the morning and saw Shani, she ran to her with her arms wide open. Hadley was happy to have Shani read lots of stories to her all weekend long, one of them, My World, which is the companion to Goodnight Moon is one of Hadley's favorites and no one can figure out why. It is a rather strange book to say the least.

We were out and about all weekend long because the weather was beautiful. We stopped in to browse the books at Barnes and Noble, and while Hadley has taken an interest in books, what she really enjoyed doing was riding up and down the escalator with her daddy.

I realize this last one looks a little alarming but Hadley was OK. If you want to be nervous, come over and watch us try to help Hadley up our three flights of stairs in our building while carrying a diaper bag (and sometimes coffee).

We also made a trip to the National Zoo which was our best trip yet. This was the first time Hadley seemed to really enjoy looking at the animals. (She can tell you what a dog, cat, cow, duck, and sheep say.) Her latest obsessions are babies and people her size, any kind of animal, and school buses so she was in her element at the zoo.

I'm not sure what Hadley is looking at here. This could have been the point in our visit where I walked out of the exhibit because there was a sign that read something along the lines of "Our animals are not behind glass and are running around wild. Please use caution." Why anyone would continue to hang out in such an exhibit is beyond me.

I think Jesse's giving Hadley the scientific name of a very small monkey in this picture.

I can't remember what Hadley and I are looking at here, but you can tell she's intrigued.

And here's Hadley trying to get someone's attention by giving him/her a big grin. Who cares about animals when there are all these people around?