Weekend at Moppy and Poppy's House!

Since we didn't get to drive up to Tennessee at Easter, we've been wanting to take a weekend to visit Mop and Pop and the family.  Bruce had to stay and work, but Silas, Avery, and I took off bright and early Friday morning headed to Jackson, Tennessee.  We made a quick stop in Grenada to pick up Mimi and continued north.  Here are the chatterboxes who kept me entertained the entire drive:

We have been wanting to stop at the Memphis Zoo for quite some time, and this day proved perfect.  It was HOT, but was overcast which helped some.  Silas and Avery were mesmerized at all the exhibits of animals.  They led the way the whole time we were there.

Strollers are useful for steps stools, of course.

The leaders of the pack:

For some reason, Avery had it in her head that she wanted to visit China.  At each exhibit, she would ask, "is this China?" We did finally make it to the Panda exhibit, and then I realized she must have thought an animal was named China… who knows.  Maybe she wanted to call this cute one China.   We watched the Pandas eat the "sticks" for a while, and Silas wanted to figure out why and how they were able to peel the green covering off the bamboo with their teeth.  (It was fascinating to me too:-)

I wish I could remember some of the funny things they said all day.  They are at the age of making up stories and their comments keep us laughing.  Sometimes they are like an old married couple interacting with each other, correcting each other, telling one another what to do and not do, and making sure the imaginary stories are 100% factual, of course.

Then, we saw THIS place to ride a camel!!  I asked Silas and Avery if they wanted to, half-way expecting them to say no, but they both wanted to ride… and so did I!  So we all climbed aboard this one named Cotton and hung on.  I've always wanted to ride a camel.  Cotton even smiled as we paused for the picture.

And, of course the carousel was a must do.

What a fun day!  We are so glad Mimi came with us - everything is always more fun with Mimi!  I wish I could share the hilarious pics from the photo booth…. but I'll leave you to wonder.  Avery held the strip of four pictures most of the day, looking at it every few minutes and cackling out loud.



We left the zoo in the nick of time as the downpour began.  The kids napped from Memphis to Jackson and we paraded into Mop and Pop's house later that afternoon. Silas immediately hopped onto the elevator after Moppy showed him how, and rarely got off while we were at the house.  Quite the cute bellman, if you ask me.

As in true Arnold fashion, not much time goes by before the karaoke machine comes out.  Silas and Avery had been looking forward to this - they remembered Christmas and the disco ball and couldn't wait to bring the party back.

Even for an audience of none.

Sweet times.

Saturday morning, Silas and Avery were up early and ready to go to GayGay's swimming pool!

Our little diva.

And taxi driver… water taxi or land taxi?  Who cares, right?

Kaelyn and Jack came to visit that afternoon - I love watching them all play together. They're growing up too fast.

We went to dinner that night with almost the whole gang for Father's Day.

More sweetness.

And Avery took every opportunity for glamour lessons from Moppy.  I snuck in to take a picture of one of the lessons.

On the way home Sunday afternoon, we stopped in Grenada to let Mimi off and see Papaw for a few minutes.  Silas and Avery quickly challenged him to "Ping Pool", a novel game made up spontaneously by the duo.

It was a great weekend with family… we are so blessed.  We headed on home to Jackson and crashed.