Tuesday, December 30, 2008

A Magical Evening

We've had a couple of fun outings this weekend! It seems like it's been a little more relaxing since all the Christmas hustle and bustle is past and we've had fun on both of our outings!

The first one I'll share with you today was our trip to the Zoo Lights. Before Christmas, we were given five free tickets. Colt and his girlfriend, Amber, weren't able to go along with us, so Joy invited her friend, Kasey, to go along (and we gave the other one away to a lady in line at the zoo). We all had a wonderful time, but you can see by these girls' faces that they had a ball!

The first pictures were taken before the entrance gate. We were greeted by this big beautiful lit Christmas tree!



Here are the girls in front of the tree posing of course!



Here they are posing in front of the alligator. All of the statues out front like this had wreaths on them. They were so pretty!





And then you know how much I've wanted snow this year....well the zoo had a couple of different spots where it was "snowing" and it was great! The girls (and me) had lots of fun there! (I think I really enjoyed myself this evening, because Jason had camera duty and I was free to "play")! Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!















And Jason held up the camera and took a picture of us together in the snow. (A little distorted picture, but still a fun one!)



From there we went on to the holiday farm! This was a hands-on petting zoo!



And here are the "cow"girls!



Look what hatched!



Walking through the zoo, the lights were so pretty!









Next we took a train ride on the North Pole Express. The girls were lucky enough to get a seat on the very back of the train!



After the train ride, they decided the take a virtual ride on the "Glacier Run". We could hear them screaming from outside!



Then it was off to Santa's Workshop. Santa wasn't there, so they decided to take a seat in his chair.



This was the tree in Santa's workshop.





Then we walked through my LEAST favorite part....the herpetarium.....but we did meet Bob the Turtle.



There were many photo ops throughout...

With the moose...



With the panda (the zoo has real pandas LeLe and YaYa from China)..



Then everybody was hungry...so we headed over to the cookie decorating shoppe....



Joy decorating her cookie....



Kasey decorating hers...



And this one is funny to me....notice how intent Jason is decorating his cookie...



I decorated a cookie too, but I had the camera during this particular part (I ate it all too and it was yummy)!

And here they are enjoying the fruits of their labor!





Carriage rides were also offered through the zoo, but we opted to walk since we had taken a carriage ride just a day ago (the other outing I will share with you on my next post), but the girls did stop to pose in front of this carriage all decorated with wreaths.





And Santa's sleigh was just outside the gift shop.



After our walk through the zoo lights, we stopped by our newly remodeled McDonalds that has the coolest tables with video games for the kids to play, so the girls played a game of checkers and mini golf.

I asked Joy and Kasey what their favorite part was and they loved the virtual ride, the train ride, and the SNOW! Snow really does have a way of making it fun....for us it just made it a magical evening!

14 comments:

:-) said...

Hi Tammy,
Looks like such a fun family outing! Loved all the pics! Every year we say we are going to get to Zoo Lights....but so far it hasn't happened...but I think they still have it going for a few more nights and you have inspired me to check it out!
Enjoyed your blog - found you by way of Lea :-)

Betsy Banks Adams said...

Wow---Zoo Lights are fabulous, aren't they??? Looks like you all had a wonderful time. Sorry your son and his gal couldn't be with you too.

Have a great day, Tammy.
Hugs,
Betsy

Farmhouse Blessings said...

What a fun day! You can just see the joy in the girls faces. I love the photo of all of you enjoying the snowflakes. AND I'm so happy you have snow on your blog now. Isn't it fun?

Hugs,
Lea

Lindsey said...

Hey Tammy, I could not find your email address so I am leaving you a comment! Your blog is great, it will be on my list of daily sites visited. Looks like you guys had fun can't wait to see the ones from Christmas, I know you got some good ones of Joy and Jackson!! She was so great with him. He is now asking about her all the time. Please shoot me an email and let me know you got this. Also will Jason make me that table if I pay him? If he only wants to do it for you I understand ;)..
Lindsey
lweventplanner@aol.com

Linda ★ Parker's General said...

OH, my. I never thought about the zoo in winter! I guess, around here most zoos are closed. Looks like you ALL had a great time. I love how you do so many things together...

Zaroga said...

Tammy I thoroughly enjoyed the outing. Those girls really had a blast... and you and Jason too. It is so neat to see families have so much fun together.

Never So Simple said...

What a neat place. We haven't gotten any snow here in VA either. It's actually warm for this time of year. I loved all the lights Jason did a great job with the pictures.

Joy has the prettiest hair. I didn't realize how long and curly it was until these pictures.

Donna

Birgit said...

Hi Tammy,
Wow, that zoo looks awesome! It looks like you all had so much fun. I've never even heard of zoo lights before...
I loved looking at all your great photo's. They came out great considering it was dark out.
I can't wait to read about your sleigh ride and see more pictures.
Have a safe and Happy New Year!
Hugs & blessings to you all~ Birgit

Linda - Behind My Red Door said...

I love light shows like that - I could spend every evening at one and a little snow makes it better!! What fun!

I hope your New Years is the best ever!!

Tammy said...

Wow, that looks like such a fun time for you all, Tammy! That is so cool that you kind of got your snow after all! ;) (I love the snow falling on your blog page too...I still haven't found out how to do that!)

We have zoo lights too- I took the girls two years ago. I heard that our zoo had to close several days due to the snowstorm this month though!

Anyway, I do believe your zoo lights are even better than ours...thanks for sharing it with us all! :)

Hugs,
~Tammy

Anonymous said...

Tammy,
You and your family looks great! Look like fun....outing with family...Beautiful lights....I love the pics of Joy in the hatching egg...CUTE! Wishing you and your family Happy New Year

•♦•©The Olde Weeping Cedar •♦• said...

What a great time...your pictures are just wonderful! What a HAPPY-Beautiful family! :)

hugs-Kath

Shelley said...

Those girls had the biggest smiles on their faces in every photo - you can tell how much fun they had!!

nikkicrumpet said...

Hey Tammy...thanks for stopping by my blog...I've been wandering around yours having a great time. I think that we have now discovered the next two America's Next Top Models! Those two beautiful girls are sure good at posing for the camera! It looks like so much fun. Especially the cookie part lol....ok and the carriage ride (with a cookie).