Animal Kingdom

When Ly + Alan were at Disney, Ly fell in love with Animal Kingdom. Since Alan got super sick on their first day at Animal Kingdom (read: motion sickness), Ly & Alan spent some time exploring the park and avoiding the rides. They walked on all of the trails and saw tons of animals. Ly loved the fact that she could be a wilderness explorer and collect badges throughout the entire park. Alan also enjoyed this discovery because it distracted Ly & gave her something to do other than ride Expedition Everest a million times. They also took tons of photos of the animals (no surprise given Ly's affinity for animals). Animal Kingdom is so beautiful, the imagineers really out did themselves with the theming - from the lines themselves to the park in general, the entire place is plethora of beauty.

In fact, Ly loved Animal Kingdom so much that they decided to change their plans and went to Animal Kingdom every morning to ride Expedition Everest (her favorite ride...it goes fast, backwards in the dark, and even has a big drop) as many times as possible in a row before Alan puked (the limit was 4 times without a small break) and then to say hello to some of their favorite animals before going to visit the other parks.

Alan & Ly in front of the best ride ever!! 

saddest video ever

at least they are okay in the end

Butterflies

While in Shenandoah a few weeks ago, Ly+Alan came across a massive field of butterflies. There were hundreds of them in a few square feet. It was awesome.

Baby Birds

Well, Ly+Alan have officially moved into their new place in Richmond. They are loving it - not only do they absolutely adore their cute new townhouse, but living near friends is a major bonus. People in Richmond are quite friendly and Alan seems to be loving school. But more on that later.

This post is instead about Alan's new-found friends the baby robins that live in the tree outside our house. Within the first week of living here, Alan noticed a nest in a tree, complete with a few eggs. Over the next few days, the baby birds emerged and we watched as the mother robin carefully and attentively cared for her babies. As the days turned into weeks, the baby robins began to hop around the trees and flap their wings in anticipation of flying. Finally, a few days ago the babies mastered the skill of flying and we haven't seen them since.

National Zoo

Yesterday Ly+Alan's good friends invited them to go to the National Zoo. Never one to miss a chance to see pandas, Ly dropped her plans and immediately agreed...besides she has to take advantage of her husband pushing her around in the wheelchair while she can. While they did see the pandas, the highlight was the lion exhibit - the lions were quite active, even attacking some ice meat the keepers threw out there for them. Here's a photo for your enjoyment, taken, shockingly enough, by Alan. He's quite proud, as he should be.

Hop's Family on a Sunday Afternoon

For your enjoyment...

Hop's New Siblings

Yesterday was a day just like any other - doctors appointments, grocery shopping, visiting the DMV, basically nothing too exciting that is until Ly spotted some baby geese while at the mall. Excited, she ran home to get her camera (even though you would think she would've learned by now to carry it with her at all times) and immediately went to visit Hop's family. As expected, there were 5 baby geese! Hop must be so excited to have so many new siblings. His family obviously remembered her because they allowed her to get within 10 feet of the goslings without so much as raising their head.

Ly also saw another goose family with 3 little goslings and they were a bit more weary and did not allow her to get close at all. But that's okay, they'll get to know her eventually, just like Hop's family did.

San Diego Zoo & Wild Animal Park

As any intelligent human being knows, a trip to San Diego is not complete without a visit to the San Diego Zoo to see the giant pandas. Since Ly has been watching the panda cam 24/7 she knows the schedule of the baby panda by heart. Thus, Ly was there when the baby panda was taking her nap and also when she was climbing the trees and playing with bamboo. In addition to seeing the pandas, Ly and her family also saw tigers, bears, birds, and all sorts of other animals.

The Geese are Back!

Spring is finally here as indicted by the arrival of the geese...including Hop who is growing up so quickly!

A Trip to the Zoo

Last weekend Ly wanted to go to the zoo to see the pandas. Alan agreed - and even said he had no problem pushing her around in the wheelchair, as long as she agreed to see the other animals too. Ly laughed and brushed it off, thinking that there really wasn't much else to see besides pandas. 5 hours and 3 stops off at the pandas later, Ly realized she was wrong. She saw elephants fight over hay, a tiger fall into some water, and birds strutting their stuff for the ladies.

Needless to say, both Ly and Alan enjoyed their little outing - Ly got to see the pandas do what pandas do - play, eat, sleep, take a bath, eat some more, and play in the dirt less than 1 foot away from where she was sitting. Alan, on the other hand, got to actually enjoy the other animals the zoo has to offer - without his wife sprinting from the car to the pandas and back to the car again.

Snow Day!

Due to the blizzard of 2009 (as the news people are calling it) the schools and all federal buildings were closed yesterday...yay for snow days! Poor Alan had to go in to work for a little bit to feed his cells (apparently those little buggers don't care if it is a snow day or not) but after he got back the fun began. Ly desperately wanted to go play in the snow again but was overruled by Alan and her dad. Instead they took a much needed trip to Costco, went to the movies, and went on a search for some geese.

Apparently everyone else decided to use their snow day to visit Costco because it was a madhouse. About an hour or so later, Ly+Alan left Costco with their wallets significantly lighter and their arms full of groceries and holiday goodies.

Next stop was the movies. For weeks Ly has been talking about seeing the Princess and the Frog. So she convinced her dad if he gave up his desire to go see Avatar then he wouldn't need to give up his man card while watching the princess movie. Being the awesome dad that he is, Ly's dad agreed (the man has seen twilight after all) The Princess and the Frog was sooo good! Ly loved every second of it and would go see it again...it isn't wall-e worthy, but still one she'd like to own for her collection. Ly's dad, on the other hand, thought differently as he fell asleep during the movie. Oh well you can't win them all. After the movies Ly+Alan took Ly's dad to their favorite Mexican place for some happy hour extravaganzas. Ly's dad enjoyed his beer while Ly enjoyed her nachos.

They also found some geese and Ly was so excited because Alan had told her that the geese left because of the snow storm. They didn't have anything to eat here in the 2 feet of snow Alan reasoned and convinced her (with the help of her dad) that the geese flew to Pennsylvania. Ly proved them both wrong, however, when she sighted a huge family of geese outside the movie theater. The geese were skating on the frozen pond and enjoying some quality family time - because that's what everyone does this time of year, obviously.

Black bear, black bear what do you see?

Ly is finally feeling better and in celebration of the event Ly + Alan took one of their infamous drives to Shenandoah - and saw a few animals...including two elusive black bears and some awesome deer.