Lions and Tigers and Bears and Beetles and...

Drake has always loved animals. He enjoys looking at pictures of animals, pointing out animals, making animal noises, and looking at live animals. What two year old (any a person of any age for that matter) knows the sound that a zebra or a hippo make? Drake does...there's an app for that. We have spent a lot of our time over the last month and a half visiting various nature institutes. I have counted that, in his short life, Drake has now been to six zoos, one aquarium, one insectarium, and one animal theme park (Disney's Animal Kingdom). That is quite an extensive collection of animal based nature institutes for a 2 year old!

We are members of the Greenville Zoo, so that is a standard zoo experience for us. If we are running errands in Greenville, we will often just stop by the zoo first. It is very small and takes Drake's little legs just 45 minutes to walk through. Our zoo membership does grant us reciprocity (typically 50% off) at many zoos all around the country, which is a nice perk. The other animal homes we have visited recently are:

Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia, SC:
Drake was going to stay with David's parents for the week andColumbia is about the halfway point for us to meet. Since I have been wanting to take him to Riverbanks for a while, this seemed like the perfect opportunity. It was nice going to a larger zoo that had animals different than what we see in Greenville. Drake was especially fond of the howler monkeys, penguins, and play fighting bears.

Audubon Butterfly Garden and Insectarium in New Orleans, LA:
Our next stop on the animal train was the Insectarium while Drake and I went in New Orleans for a quick weekend visit with my parents. We love the Audubon Zoo and the Aquarium is ok, so the only portion of the institute we had remaining to visit with the Insectarium. Drake has been pretty into bugs lately, although he thinks all flying bugs are bees. He really enjoyed looking at the insects and the 4D bug film they offered was a nice surprise. The exhibits were nicely done and he was able to interact with a few insects but overall, I would not say that it was worth the price of admission.

Hollywild Animal Park, Wellford, SC:
Our most recent animal adventure came just this past weekend when we visited Hollywild. This was our second visit to Hollywild, the first being last summer. He was much more interested in the animals this visit and loved to chase the geese, chickens, and peacocks. Many of the animals that live in Hollwild are working animals, either in movies, television, or advertisements. They also have a safari where guests board a bus that takes you our to a very large area where the animals graze (and eat bread from the bus passengers). It was a good, interactive visit.

Our animal adventures will continue...this summer I hope we will visit the North Carolina Zoo, the Atlanta Zoo, and the Atlanta Aquarium.

It's A...

May 15th was our anatomy ultrasound that typically happens between 18-20 weeks in the pregnancy. The main purpose of this ultrasound is to make sure that the baby is developing well and that everything appears "normal". I think most people look forward to this ultrasound most to find out the sex of the baby.

The baby is developing nicely and I was happy to hear that I did not have placenta previa again this pregnancy. Because I had none of the risk factors when I was pregnant with Drake and because I had it once, the chances were greater that I would have previa this pregnancy. I just assumed that I would have it, so it was good to hear that the placenta is high and will only move higher.

So, the news that everyone wants to hear...it's a girl!

Again, this was a surprise to me. I have felt pretty much the same this pregnancy as I did with Drake, so I falsely just had in my mind that it was a boy. We are very excited that we're having a girl, although we would have been very excited had we been told it was a boy. Now to start the cleaning out process and making room for her to join our family and home.

These 3D images are pretty crazy (sorry it is on it's side, it is a picture of the ultrasound taken with my phone and apparently the blog did not like the format). It is amazing how many features you can see in this picture. Even though it is just a flip of the switch on the ultrasound machine, we do not have any of these images of Drake.

Let's Go Fly A Kite

Forgive me for the lack of posting of late. I will try and make up for it over the next week and give as many updates as possible. Life has been busy, but not with very much excitement. It has rained here the entire weekend for the past four weeks, which has really limited our ability to get out and enjoy the outdoors.

Last month, Drake experienced his first kite flying fun. He enjoys watching Kipper and, in many of the episodes, Kipper and his friends are flying a kite, typically on "big hill". Drake received a kite for his birthday from his Uncle Rusty, Aunt Patti, and cousins Anna and Mary Kate. One windy day, I decided to pull it out and try to fly it in our back yard. While we have plenty of room to fly a kite in our yard, the wind was blocked by the surrounding woods.

After the yard fail, we took Drake and the kite to the properly named, Kite Hill. This is a space on campus that is a huge hill and, apparently, offers plenty of wind to those wishing to fly a kite. Other than the string breaking and Drake letting go when he had full control, kite flying was a huge success on Kite Hill. We pass this hill everyday on our way home from daycare now and, everyday, Drake says, "Kite Hill, fly kite". I guess this experience made an impact!