Playing outside

We've been spending some fun time outside in our front yard lately. Allie likes to run around, play with rocks and just sit on the porch. Its a nice way to relax.

Messy girl

Vacation started for Mama and Allie this morning. After taking Dada to work, we went home to have some YoBaby (Allie's organic yogurt). Allie has been dabbling with feeding herself and really likes feeding herself her yogurt.

You can see here what happened with the yogurt! Mama walked away to look up some information for our plans (we were going to go to the arboretum). Unknown to Mama, Allie dropped her spoon and continued eating the yogurt!

The result was a mess when she dumped the yogurt all over!

This mess required shirt removal before I could take her upstairs to get her dressed!

But we had a busy and late night last night with Mama's band concert. And Allie was still really tired. So tired that our plans to go to the arboretum were canceled in favor of an early nap. It ended up being a loooong nap. She slept four and a half hours! We didn't end up going anywhere today, but Mama got a lot done around the house! Its OK though. This is vacation. We're not on a schedule. And now Dada's on vacation too!

Today was just a messy day all around. We gave Allie ravioli for dinner and the mess from THAT meal made a bath necessary!

Bye bye bear

A fun morning at the zoo

We had a fun morning at the zoo on Sunday! Its fun going now that Allie is older. She loves seeing the animals and she also liked walking around on her own a bit. We have a great little zoo here in Madison. 

We started with the prairie exhibit, with the bison, prairie dogs and badger. Allie stood up next to the bison cutout. That bison is a lot bigger than her!

 She made herself comfortable in the reptile house. Here she plopped down by one of the snakes.

We have fun making bzzzzzz sounds and today Allie saw the real bees! We were glad they were on the other side of the glass.

We got to see the lion cub, Leopold, who was born in December!

We have a picture from last year of Allie putting her hands up next to the primate hands. She's a lot bigger this year, but her hands are still smaller than the primates.

We watched the orangutan for awhile in his outside area. He was shredding pieces of paper and then swinging around on vines and ropes and all sorts of fun things. Allie enjoyed watching him and probably wanted to join him.

 Here's another picture that I have from last year. It'll be fun watching her grow up in these pictures!

When we got home we came in the front door and Allie plopped down on the porch. She really seems to enjoy just sitting on the porch. Its so cute.

Its nice going to the zoo now that we don't have to carry Allie in the places where they don't allow the strollers. But the drawback is that it takes longer to go through with a toddler walking. We didn't get to see everything, but its free. So we can just go back next weekend!

A ride on the carousel

The Dursos had a fun Saturday morning and crossed an item off the summer to-do list! After Mama's first band concert of the summer, we headed to Ella's Deli for lunch and a ride on the carousel.

We spent plenty of time looking through the dessert menu, before we even ordered lunch! Allie looks really grown up here, don't you think?

Allie had teddy bear french toast, that is, french toast shaped like teddy bears. She ate the whole thing! I was pretty impressed, but Dada wasn't, as its not hard to convince Allie to eat food dipped in maple syrup. Good point, Dada.

Ella's Deli is a neat place. The draw is the 1927 carousel outside, but the inside is decorated with more carousel themes and lots of other odd knick knacks. Above we have Humpty Dumpty, Michael JOrdan and Batman.

You can't see in the picture, but above the ice cream counter there's a monkey that rides back and forth on a cable. I remember coming here when I was a kid. My aunt brought us here when she lived in Madison. I'd forgotten about it until however many years later right after Doug and I moved to Madison. We spent plenty of time driving around exploring and the minute I saw the place I remembered. Of course we had to go inside.

I've wanted to ride the carousel, but Doug never wanted to when we didn't have a kid. Well now we do have a kid! So Mama got to ride the carousel too!

Allie really enjoyed the ride. I didn't notice until we were almost done that I'd picked a badger horse for Allie to ride on!

When I was a kid, we went to Godfather's Pizza for everyone's birthdays. We always looked forward to birthdays because we didn't go out to eat much anyway, and I'm not sure we ever went to Godfather's Pizza except for birthdays. So it was special. I think Ella's Deli may become our special birthday place. I also think we may have at least one birthday party there. Its cool because there's no place like it.

When the ride was done a nice lady offered to take a picture of all three of us. These family pictures turned out really nice!

Typical Allie

This is just one example of our nightly entertainment.

The future's so bright, she's gotta wear shades