Fourth of July Weekend

I finally have all the pictures I wanted on my computer! Hoorah!

To start off, my parents arrived in Rexburg from their LONG trip from California on Thursday night. Next day was the Fourth of July and we planned on going to the amazing fireworks in Idaho Falls. About 150,000 people flock to these fireworks every year. It's right off the Snake River, by the Idaho Falls temple. It's a pretty impressive display of fireworks. Brad tried to get some shots of them going off, and he's rather proud of them so I'll put a few up.

We got to Idaho Falls early to find a decent spot to witness the fireworks, and while waiting we were able to catch up with some friends of ours, the Hatch's and Wessman's. Kim, Bekah, and I were Laurels together in Young Womens when I moved to IF. I loved getting to know them and they really helped me adapt to my new surroundings and were the best people. Great times with those girls! And Kim's mom, Callie, was my Young Womens President who I haven't seen in a long time- it's always special seeing past church leaders. It was just wonderful to see all of them.

Brad, me, Bekah, and her husband, Lance

The boys taking a nap... had to take a picture of it.

He let me take a picture of him.

My parents.

Our view of the temple, right behind us.The Snake River. I love it there. It was so nice to be back in Idaho Falls.

After the fireworks, we were pleasantly surprised to find ourselves on the freeway back to Rexburg only 10 or so minutes after leaving our parking area! But we still didn't get home until almost midnight, so we were all pretty dog-tired and went straight to bed.

Saturday morning we all got ready to go to the Idaho Falls ZOO! Rylee was excited to go, and so was I. I love animals and am totally a little kid in zoos. The Idaho Falls zoo is such a perfectly small size, too. Whenever I go anywhere where there are animals, my camera gets used A LOT!

I loved this animal, obviously cat related though the name of it escapes me. It's from Asia. He kept going around and around his cage.

This is a red panda and was so cool! He kept pacing his cage and climbing all over the place.

This monkey was in the perfect position for us to see him...

And Rylee took full advantage of it!

These monkeys were SO small but so entertaining to watch! You can kind of see that one guy in the middle doing a funny pose. Personality to boot!

Rylee and I by the TINY monkeys

So... my flash is very obvious on the glass in this picture, but this is the only picture I got with the tiny little baby on the mommy's back. Later on I saw him off her back swinging a little.

This guy and his buddy were EVERYWHERE- just super active! I loved the way they positioned themselves to drink.

I called this guy the Skunk Monkey... for obvious reasons.

A kangaroo.

Brad and I... can barely tell I'm showing, if at all.

Brad loved the lemurs. And they had a baby lemur in there too! The llama sneezed and I shrieked while Rylee just laughed... not right. Brad and I were the only ones to see the parrots and macaws. They were so neat. This guy was super friendly with us.

The lions were so cool to see because they were actually up and moving around.

And the tiger wasn't quite as active as the lions, but great place for a nap and pictures.

One of the best parts of the day was the pelicans. Did anybody else know how HUGE they are? I had no idea! Look at them in the picture above compared to the little ducks in the pond with them. They kind of freaked me out at first! They were one of our first stops, and lucky we got there when we did. The zoo keepers got to the pelicans right after we did to feed them. They got the group of them in the water, then asked a little boy and Rylee to help feed the huge birds while they talked about them. Very informative, I enjoyed it. The keepers had a bucket of fish to have the kids give to the birds... funny thing, the glove Rylee was supposed to put on is what freaked her out, not the pelicans! It was so neat to see the way they ate- the lower part of their bill billows out when they get food in. It was SO cool!

Once she saw daddy feeding them she got over her fears and grabbed a fish with no glove on! Yummy!

I also loved seeing all the many different types of ducks they had. This one was one of mine and Brad's favorite. Brad couldn't get over the blue bill... we looked on the information board: this is a ruddy duck.

A little baby duckie... there were four all together and I was so tempted to hold one of them.

Rylee loves to steal the hats off of people's heads. Grandpa let her and loved it.

And the pictures finally end! Zoos are definitely one of my favorite things to go and do. And luckily I married a guy who loves animals, almost as much as me, so we're perfect for each other! It was a great weekend and I loved seeing my parents. My mom brought me some future maternity clothes she got on sale (way to go!), which is hard to imagine me ever fitting into. I'm already feeling myself fighting maternity clothes. But I know I will need them someday because I'm already not fitting into some of my clothes. Gotta love it!