Video and such

Today has been very fun. In his quest to run the Marathon in February, Chris ran sixteen miles this morning. I'm very impressed. I also wanted to take Natalie to the zoo and I was quite sure he would not feel up to all that walking after all that running. So she and I ventured to the animal kingdom together. I don't know that we've ever had a whole day of fun with just us girls. Before we hit the interstate I stopped at the Starbucks drive thru (insert here an advertisement for Starbucks, everyone in the world must try their Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate, I'm a big fan of pumpkin spice latte this time of year, but the hot chocolate beats it hands down). Anyways, back to sitting in the drive thru, I suddenly flashed back to girls days with my mom. If we were out of town together, it almost always included Starbucks. (of course now, Princeton, has a Starbucks). I loved my days out with my mom, I still do. I found myself today aching for her to join us on mine and Natalie's first girls day. However, KK is not real fond of zoos. She feels sorry for the animals in cages, so we'll keep her to the shopping days. All that said, I soaked up today. I watched Natalie as she yelled, "hey monkey" from the top of her lungs. I laughed in amazement when the monkey actually turned to look at her. She giggled and sat in awe during the train ride. She calls it the "chugga chugga choo choo ride." We looked at the water, watched the alligators, lions, elephants, we fed a giraffe, which has a really long tongue, and we got the giggles at lunch and couldn't stop laughing. It was a great day. It wasn't until leaving the park that I realized how much like me this child is. Natalie pulled herself up on a park bench and asked me to sit beside her. Then she said, "Mommy sit with me and watch the people." I love watching people, so I joined her. We sat there for a few minutes and took in the day. Our first girls day. I'm hoping for many, many, more.

The video is of Natalie enjoying her favorite book right now, Brown Bear. We took this video last week. She now has it completely memorized. She is growing...