The Hank Show

June and July have come and gone and I am still putting photos from our trip to Ohio up on our blog. A highlight of our trip was going to a wildlife conservation center called The Wilds. The drive there was lovely and the experience was fantastic! Not only did we get to take a bus safari and see some awesome animals (many of which are endangered species), we also got a very special Animal Encounters session from the Columbus Zoo. The zoo brought a few animals for the boys to meet and pet and they had a very special time with that.

It was really cool getting to see a penguin, fox kit, armadillo and baby cheetah so closely. James and Hank didn’t get to pet the cheetah (or the armadillo – they carry salmonella) but they did get to see it much closer than they would have at the zoo – with no fence between them and the cheetah. When they brought the cheetah out, the staff from the zoo and the Wilds asked that we take Paul from the room because the cheetah is drawn to small things that cry (it was nearing Paul’s naptime) – so strange to be reminded that our children would be fodder for wild animals if we were in different circumstances. Edward the cheetah (some folks at the Columbus Zoo are BIG Twilight fans – there were 3 cheetahs in the litter and they ended up being named Edward, Bella and Jacob – oh and the dog at the zoo who does the Dog and Cheetah shows is named Carlisle….) certainly kept a close eye on James and Hank (who were asked to remain seated behind a tape line on the floor while the cheetah was in the room).

Everyone had a wonderful time and we will definitely be returning to The Wilds next time we visit Ohio. Hank still talks about the trip and loves to look at the pictures and tell us who he’d like to go with him to the Wilds next time (GG, Grandad, Grandma and Grandpa are on the top of the list but he’s also mentioned his friends, Henry and JenJen when talking about going back – its a given that Ben, Nancy, Paul and James would be with us). Here are some (of the many) photos from our trip to The Wilds:

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Okay, so we’ve been home about 2 weeks now and we’re just getting to put more photos from our trip up. We are definitely one photography blessed family! Between Tyler and Ben’s gorgeous photos and my random snapshots, we have quite a few pictures from our trip (hence the breaking the trip entries into sections).

We love going to the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium! Its such a great place for the entire family. We went twice while we were in town – once with everyone and then Nancy and I took the boys to the zoo another day without Ben and Tyler. Hank had a blast both times. Highlights for him were seeing a diver feed the fish in the aquarium, sitting beneath the polar bears’ swimming pool and watching the fish above him (he did this in favor of a train ride!), feeding lorikeets, playing in the rain with James, the manatees and of course his favorite, the otters. Hank really likes otters right now and last time we took him swimming he told us he was “swimming and playing like a otter”.

Here are many photos from our trips to the zoo – all the beautiful shots of animals come from Tyler and Ben (one of these days I’ll learn how to post who took what). Enjoy!

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Our trip to Ohio was awesome! We had so much fun visiting Ben, Nancy, James and Paul (and Sam the dog although she mostly just laid around). Hank had a blast flying in an airplane – he officially has his own rewards number for frequent flying – Hank loves to fly! Everything was wonderful and the weather was perfect! It was such a relief to get our of our Texas triple-digit temperatures for a while and hang out in a place that actually has rain. I think the most warm day we were there was in the high 80s (fahrenheit). We spent as much of our trip outdoors as we could. Ben and Nancy were, as always, fabulous hosts and we had so many adventures with them during our stay that we’ll be sharing photos from our trip in batches.

We have photos from at least three cameras – Tyler’s, Ben’s and Sarah’s – so, lots and lots of photos! In this installment, you’ll see photos from the very beginning of our trip. The day we flew out to Ohio, we spent the morning with GG at the Dallas World Aquarium and our first full day in Ohio, we had a picnic and visited Slate Run Living Historical Farm. Last time we visited that farm was on Hank’s first birthday. At that time, the farm was full of autumn colored leaves and there were pumpkins everywhere. This time, everything was beautifully green and the farmers were preparing to plant pumpkins. Its so fun to see things in different seasons – so wonderful to visit a place that actually has them (okay, we do actually have four seasons here in Texas, they just sometimes seem to happen overnight rather than actually being a full season). Anyway, here are some photos from the first part of our trip, enjoy!

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Hello world

Lots of birthdays in May and June! Hank’s been having a blast singing happy birthday to friends and family – at our neighbor’s (we don’t have photos from this event), Hank sang happy birthday to Jonathan 3 times before everyone else joined in – we think maybe he was excited about getting to the cake – it was so sweet! In this post, you’ll see photos from his cousin, David and his friends, Edie and Clare’s birthday parties as well as some delicious pie tasting during a visit from GG and Grandad.

We took Hank bowling for the first time a few weeks ago and he loved it! We had a wonderful time and will definitely be going back. Hank liked rolling the ball down the alley and watching it knock over the pins. At first we were helping him push the ball down the alley and then we got a little helper thing (not what its called, I don’t know what its called) and Hank enjoyed setting up and pushing his bowling ball. He hit more pins this way and it took far less time for the ball to travel down the alley. We all had a good time and will be going bowling again soon.

Hank got to check out a fire station a few weeks ago. His favorite part of the tour was checking out the fire trucks. When everyone on the tour was there, Hank seemed a bit shy and didn’t want to climb on the trucks, but after most of the people left, he became much more interested and the firemen were incredible and super friendly and even let Hank and his friend, Jen Jen, check out the inside of an ambulance (didn’t happen on the tour). He still talks about the fire fighters and the big trucks and the fire hippo (they had a statue of a hippo painted like a fire dog outside the station). The fire chief said they’d love to have us back any time and we don’t have to come as part of a larger tour so I’m sure we’ll be taking him up on that and visiting again.

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Hank is one blessed boy. He comes from a big family and has lots of cousins to play with. We had fun playing with Kai, Connor and Mia at a bounce house recently. Most of the photos taken that day are blurry, the children were only still when they were taking a break for a drink. They had the best time pushing down some of the air-filled cones and then jumping up – and getting thrown back by the cones. So much laughter – we’re looking forward to doing that again.

We got to check out a small airport and he thought all the “little planes” were very cool! Hank had so much fun running around the hangars and checking out the various planes. He saw a lear jet take off. We went with a group and when the jet started its engines, all the children covered their ears – it was rather loud. We saw a B-25 bomber that was in the process of being restored. Hank was truly impressed with the propeller but because of the way our guide described the plane and its use, Hank preferred to call it “the mean plane”. He kept asking to take a ride in one of the airplanes – fortunately for him we’ll be taking a trip in a plane soon so it wasn’t a huge disappointment to be told no there. He had an excellent time and has asked several times to go back to “the little airport”. Next time we’ll take Daddy with us.

We went to Houston to celebrate Alyssa’s confirmation. It was a lovely service/ceremony and it really doesn’t seem like 13 years have gone by since her baptism. Hank had a blast with his cousins (and aunts, uncles and Grandpa and Grandma) over the weekend. They had fun playing in the water, taking walks, playing at the church, exploring Uncle Jon’s garden and eating lots of delicious food. This was the first time Hank actually slept on his own bed at a hotel (previously he slept in his travel tent but he can manage the zipper now and its become a game – a game that distracts him from sleeping). It wasn’t the best night of sleep for any of us, but Hank had a blast. He kept saying, “Hey, Kids! Watch this!” and then jumping and flipping on his bed. Nothing like being called “kid” by your child at 2am – we’re rethinking our “hotel beds are the only beds we can jump on” rule… Poor sleep aside, it was a fantastic weekend full of lots of family fun and a big milestone in Alyssa’s journey.

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Hank has his first broken bone a few weeks ago. He’d been sitting backward in a chair at a restaurant, the chair fell backward and Hank’s finger was crushed beneath the chair. As things went, we are incredibly blessed that all Hank walked away with was a broken finger (he totally face-planted!). God really protected him! Hank sported a red cast for a while (he picked the color) and spent quite a lot of time watching his favorite show, “Kipper” (Hank sports a beautiful British accent now for certain words and we just love to hear him say “Let me have a go!” – We will not be discouraging this way of speaking, its very endearing). He had his cast taken off a few weeks ago and his finger is healing nicely.

Our garden is doing well and Hank has been having a blast picking tomatoes, herbs and peppers and checking on the squash and other plants. our peas died – not sure why, so we replaced them with watermelon plants. Hank is very excited about the prospect of growing a watermelon in his yard – I have to admit, we are too. Watermelon is perhaps Hank’s favorite fruit right now. He’s also had fun helping in Grandma and Grandpa’s garden. He helped Grandma plant beans recently and also had fun filling one of their new bird feeders. Whenever we visit them now, Hank runs to the back window to see if the birds are eating the seeds (they usually are and he’ll gleefully jump announcing “the birds are eating the seeds!!”).

Hank continues to enjoy cooking. Presently he’s very into making pizza. Hank very much takes after Tyler in the food department. He could eat pizza or beef any day – we’re working on the veg and fruit but growing our own makes it more fun for him.

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The past weeks have been full of fun for us! We’ve gone to several gatherings including play dates, birthday parties, picnics and we’ve been playing outside and going to parks quite often as well. Hank went to one of his pals from music class, Jaiden’s birthday party at “the mouse place” as Hank calls it. He had a blast playing all the games and eating pizza. Hank played ski-ball for the first time in his life and really seemed to like it – he’s been asking to go bowling since then. Right after that party, we went to a cheese tasting and Hank was in heaven! He’s quite the pro now at selecting a utensil and spearing cheese. We were rather surprised to learn he enjoys Topo Chico Toronja – a fizzy grapefruit drink from Mexico. We gave him Sprite once and he pulled a face and shook his head so its interesting to us that he likes this drink.

the gorgeous ball run Ty made for Hank

Later in the month we met some of our friends for a lovely picnic. Hank had fun running around with Ismail and Sebnem and of course eating all the delicious food. We are so blessed to have such fabulous cooks among our friends and Hank is a big fan of Turkish cuisine so he enjoyed himself immensely at the picnic.

Tyler built Hank a ball run for the backyard – its beautiful! In typically Tyler fashion, he didn’t just make a ball run (my idea was to use new gutters and cut holes on the ends, angle them and send whiffle balls down), he actually designed one (of course, the engineer that he is) – and even incorporated an old xylophone we’d picked up at a garage sale. Not only does Hank have a gorgeous wooden ball run (complete with little wooden balls), he has one that allows the balls to play the descending C scale as they roll. He loves it of course (as we all do!) and literally jumped up and down cheering when the balls made it to the bottom the first several times (sometimes he still does the jumping cheering). Tyler also put in a raised bed for us so now we are trying more vegetables and fruit. We put acorn squash, cantaloupe, beans, peas, carrot and radish in – we’ll see how they do. Our neighbors (and friends), Niko and Isabella, came over to help us plant the new garden and its been great fun watching everything grow. So wonderful to see Hank checking the plants every day and then exclaiming when he saw teeny radish sprouts, “The plants are awake!!”.

Hank has been enjoying hanging out with some of his cousins. He had fun getting cookies with his cousins, Kai, Connor and Mia Hope recently. Sweets and family, fun times! We celebrated Easter at Grandpa and Grandma’s house this year. We went to church with them and Hank enjoyed a pancake breakfast and an egg hunt there. He thought the whole thing very cool. He also saw (and heard) a trumpet player during the service and was quite impressed. Now when we hear trumpets in music, he often says “Do you hear the trumpet? I really like that.”  Hank’s cousin, Michael, celebrated his birthday a few weeks ago. Hank had a blast at the party! Michael had a big gaming party and Hank got to play Mario Kart for the first time in his life – he had a good time. There was laser tag, several different games, balloons, cake – very fun times and Hank slept hard when he got home from that party. We’ve been enjoying going to baseball games this season. Hank really likes the experience and the music. He was fascinated by the activities in the bullpen last time we went. He loves to run up and down the berm and laughs and laughs. He doesn’t seem sure what to make of the mascot. He went to a game one night with Tyler and our friend, John and they ended up sharing funnel cake (he’d never had funnel cake before). So the next game we went to, Hank ended up reading a sign (he put his finger on the letters and sounded it out – it was amazing!) then told us he needed one. Too funny! I’m sure I’m forgetting some of our adventures over the past few weeks – they’ve been incredibly full, but here are several photos for your enjoyment.

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