V-Day Weekend

We had a great three-day family weekend. We had no plans for the weekend so played each day by ear, and ended up having lots of fun, and more importantly enjoying a nap every day!!

We started off the weekend right, having dinner and watching the Olympic opening ceremony with some friends. Then on Saturday morning we decided to head to the butterfly pavilion and see what that was all about.

The Butterfly Pavilion is an invertebrate zoo with rooms lined with aquariums and terrariums containing all sorts of interesting creatures from sea stars to giant cockroaches!

This guy greeted us at the door.

And I got to hold Rosie, (I even got a sticker proclaiming the same.) Natalie was too young to hold the Tarantula, and DH was not interested.
We had the most fun in a sun-filled "rainforest" housing thousands of free-flying butterflies and moths. This is a giant Owl was enjoying some tasty rotting fruit from one of the many feeders.
Unfortunately it was so sunny in that room that most of our pictures didn't turn out. But we did manage to capture these rare beauties a bit later.

The next day was Valentines day. It was so snowy that it didn't look like our tentative plan to go to the zoo was going to pan out. So we had a relaxing morning at home. After our naps we decided to give the zoo a chance in the warmer, (above freezing at least!) afternoon temperatures. It turned out to be a perfect time to spend a few hours at the zoo. We missed all the morning Luner New Year festivities, but the place was all ours so it was worth it.

The Lions were up and about....

And so was the tiger, (it is now year of the tiger by the way.)

We all enjoyed some hot cocoa to fend off the cold while we watched the polar bears look for all the food the keepers had just spread around for them.

I definitely recommend the zoo on a snowy day. Especially if the sun is out. It was great. And there are always the indoor exhibits around if you need to duck out of the cold for a bit. We followed another keeper around bird world where she was dropping of crickets and grubs. It was also interesting to see the winter quarters for the flamingos! Looked like quite the party. We'd been wondering where they all were on such a chilly day!

Yesterday was much warmer. DH gave me a belated V-day present and took Nat out for the morning shopping. When they got back we had our third great nap of the weekend, and then enjoyed the afternoon at home just hanging out. Here are my two favorite people playing with some bubbles while the grill heats up. Nat is also in her belated V-day outfit. And she's clean too! We managed to give her a very thorough bath this weekend. Hair and all. It's a real chore with the cast on, but we got it done.
Not sure what this face is about, but wanted to share it anyway. Hopefully it doesn't come out for all my pictures from now on!