Memorial Day Weekend Fun

Our Memorial Day Weekend fun started with celebrating Jeff Perkins’ graduation from Pittsburg State University. The party at Marcia and Chuck’s was the usual combination of great food, drink, family and friends. Mikaela and Jonathan had a blast in the backyard, playing tag and hide and seek with Cousin Margo.

On Sunday, it was on to the annual Memorial Day Weekend party at the Rooks’ house. Rain threatened on and off, but not enough to keep the kids out of the unofficial opening day of their pool. Mikaela was on and off various rafts and chasing toys to the bottom of the pool all afternoon, though her favorite thing to do was to go down the slide (even if it was a bit cold). She made it look like so much fun that Jonathan insisted on trying it too (with me catching him at the bottom of the slide).

After Jonathan took a break to play peek-a-boo in the playhouse for a while, he was gung-ho to get back into the water. After the experience with the waterslide, he couldn’t wait to be IN the water – which to him meant actually going down into the water, preferably as close to over his head as possible.

The Monday holiday was spent on a much-anticipated trip to the Zoo. We started with the kids’ favorite – the Peekaboo Tree (which was good, because it was drizzling a bit when we got there). But the rain let up soon, and didn’t interfere with the rest of our trek through Africa.

We took the boat ride across the lake and got to the hippos just in time for the scheduled zookeeper chat (Mikaela took full advantage of question and answer time). I got great picture opportunities from the boat of giraffes, zebras, oryx and cranes. We spent a solid three hours walking around the zoo, and the kids were remarkably well-behaved.

We capped off the holiday weekend with dinner with Grandma Marcia and Zaydie Larry. For the first time all weekend, I left the cameras at home. And sure enough, I missed a great video opportunity as Zaydie Larry played his guitar and both Jonathan and Mikaela sang along.