A Visit

Last weekend Bryan's mom, Shelley and Ella all came to visit us and we had so much fun! We did a lot-- probably more than we should have for how hot it was outside combined with how pregnant Shelley is. I unfortunately only thought to take pictures of one of our activities. They arrived on Thursday night and we had a full house for its size! (A post of our house will be up tonight or tomorrow!) We went to the park, ate dinner and played games, so that night was pretty relaxed.

The next day Bryan had to work for the first half of the day so us girls decided to browse around the shops downtown, which was fun. Even though I live here, I hadn't gotten to do much of that yet. We found this cool boutique called, "Bun in the Oven" that had baby toys, clothes, maternity clothes, etc. It was slightly on the expensive side, as boutiques usually are, but it gave us a lot of great ideas!

We picked Bryan up from work at went to eat lunch at the Boise Fry Company, a place that is just perfect for Idaho. The main order is potatoes-- you order the type of potato and then the cut of potato. You can have different kinds of fries or something called po-balls (like tater tots). Then  you order a burger on the side. The fries all come unsalted and they provide all kinds or different salt seasonings and sauces. It's awesome-- we all got different things so we got to try a little of each.

After this we went to the Zoo! The Boise Zoo is slightly small but has a lot to offer and its nestled in a park in downtown. I could never have imagined that they could fit a whole zoo there-- passerby would never notice. It is probably comparable in size to the Hogle Zoo in Utah. There were actually not very many people there either, which made looking at the exhibits so much more enjoyable. The only downfall was, as I mentioned, the heat.

This sloth bear was pretty neat. I didn't even know these existed! We got to see him playing in the water a little. A lot of the animals were very active and it was fun to watch.

Tigers are massive, I realized on this trip. As I mentioned, it wasn't too crowded so we were able get right up there and get a really good view of them. They were probably one of my favorite parts.

Aw, Ella! This is around the time that Bryan's mom lost her phone (one of many things she lost on the trip). Someone found it and took it lost and found-- what a good person!

Ella spraying down a statue of a komodo dragon. How nice of her, thinking of others in the heat!

Another very cute shot of Ella pretending to be a turtle.

He basically posed for this picture.

I don't even remember what kind of animal has ears like this.

Laying some eggs.

This red panda is the mascot for Firefox, the browser I am currently using to write this blog! And by this panda, I mean this is actually one of the three red pandas Mozilla used in a live feed marketing project in 2011. One of the other red pandas is also at this zoo. These are the Mozilla Firefoxes.

This anteater was actually so big! I had no idea!

As a special attraction, we went to a butterfly pavilion. Don't worry, there was someone there who was happy to answer all of our butterfly questions.

At one point Bryan's mom ask him, "Did you hear her answer your question?" and I butted in and said, "Does this one like to eat?" and the guide, from over his shoulder kind of gave a perplexed look. Maybe she was thinking, "People are always saying that..."

So, I love lions. I don't know what it is but they're just my favorite animals. I was sorely disappointed a couple years back to find that The Hogle Zoo didn't have any so imagine my utter glee at finding they had them here. They were on the last leg of our trip but I just kept saying, "All I want to see is the lions!" Bryan and I took Ella to see them while Shelley and his mom rested in the shade after a long walk in the hot sun. They weren't very active but it's got to be ridiculously hot with all that hair, as evidenced by:

Anyway, we were all pretty much pooped after that.We went home, cooled off, ate dinner and, surprise surprise, played games. We love playing games! It was so nice to have four players and this group is one of my favorites to play question asking games in.

The next day we had planned to go to the farmer's market here in Boise. It is so nice and big-- Bryan and I go almost every Saturday to get stuff for a Sunday dinner. We were going to go in the morning to beat the heat but the heat beat us again. Oh well! There are some cool fountains in downtown that kids play in in the summertime so we had Ella all dressed up in her bathing suit to play but she was afraid of "spiders". I think the other kids playing rambunctiously might have been a little intimidating. I was going to have a picture of it to put up here but, alas, no. The water felt wonderful on my feet though! We got a lot of food there-- it was all so good.

Again we came home and rested and did a couple of errands with Ella so Shelley could rest. When we came back the girls decided to go see, "What to Expect When You're Expecting". It seemed pretty appropriate for our group (Shelley and my sister Lindsay are both pregnant and due pretty soon and my other sister Natalie just had a baby, Jack Orson Browning, last Monday! From what I've seen, he's a doll). Bryan and I had seen it the previous weekend and really enjoyed it, apart from the swear and crude things that all movies seem to have these days. Why! Why ruin a perfectly funny and good movie with those things. So much of it was good and clean but there were definitely parts where I cringed uncomfortably.

Anyway, the next day we went to church (Bryan and I got called and sustained as Sunbeam Teachers!) and then came home and had a feast from the farmer's market. Then they packed up and left! It was a very full trip (maybe a little too full) but still so much fun. We love having people visit!

As an end note I'll just mention something entirely unrelated to the rest of this post. Last year I mentioned that the Boise temple was closing for renovations. It is supposed to be opening around October-December time frame. Bryan and I were asked, along with many other couples in the ward, to help with the open house and dedicate two sets of four hour time blocks to helping with it. I'm pretty excited and hope to possibly meet a general authority or even the prophet. Meeting one of those would be infinitely more thrilling than meeting some celebrity.