Lehi City Children's Parade

Every year the city of Lehi has their "Lehi City Round-up" and included in the festivities for the week are 2 parades.  The first is the children's parade on that Friday night and the big parade Saturday morning.  We usually attend the Saturday parade, but this year we had workers coming to insulate our attic, so we decided to go to the children's parade on Friday night instead.  It was kind of a last minute decision, so it was crazy getting chairs up to reserve our space, getting home to eat really fast, and then getting back in time, but we did it!  

Here's the gang all ready to go.

Tate was so excited, although I think he had no idea what to be excited for.  All he knew is that someone mentioned candy and he was happy!

Hailey was so cute sitting there and waiting.

Zach was happy too - he decided to camp out on the curb to be in prime candy grabbing position.

Last year Tate had barely started walking and wasn't too much into the parade, but this year he was all excited about running out and grabbing candy that people threw to him.  He was so cute!  Every time he would come back and be so excited about a single piece of candy, it was darling!  I did get pictures of the other two, but they were so fast, all the ones I got were so blurry!  We have fast candy snatchers!

This was one of Tate's favorite entries in the parade - more than likely due to the live horses.

This was Zach's favorite - it was an entry from a local ward and features cowboys in a big bathtub.  He thought it was hilarious that it looked like they were all bathing!

Hailey's favorite of course was the entry after entry of cheerleaders.  I swear I have NEVER seen so many groups of cheerleaders in all my life, but Hailey was in heaven.

The best part of the evening though, was when one of the cheerleading advisors came off the float to give her a special cheerleading necklace.  She was so happy!  And although I'm sure they gave away plenty of them, we didn't see her do any others in our area, so Hailey was thrilled at how special that was!  She wore the necklace for a week straight because she loved it so much!

We really enjoyed the Children's Parade this year and due to the heat that is usually unbearable during the Main Saturday parade, we may just go to the Children's Parade every year from now on!

Summer Day Trips - Hogle Zoo

Another fun day trip and one we look forward to every year is to go to the zoo.  The kids absolutely love seeing all the animals, especially Tate.  We had been getting so excited the whole month of June anticipating this trip and even though it was really hot, it was well worth it!

One of our first stops were the giraffes - one of Tate's favorite animals.  He even wore his giraffe shirt so show his support!  It was funny taking this picture because it took a few tries getting everyone to look at me, this final one was the best and even the giraffe cooperated by turning and looking at the camera too!

Next we headed to the Asian Highlands exhibit and there we saw the main attraction - the tigers!  After arriving, we saw one jump into the cool water just one the other side of the glass and play with the ball in there.  This was so fun to watch and we all loved it - in the past we've have a hard time seeing them as they are usually laying out under shade somewhere.

Next we headed to the new Rocky Shores exhibit that has all of the bears, otters, sea lions, etc.  We even got all of the kids to pause for a quick picture.  (Ashton, Hailey, Libby, Zach, Branson, and Tate).

I think this was Zach's favorite part of the zoo - we have been passing a billboard every time we've gone through Salt Lake that has been advertising this new exhibit and we've all been dying to see it.

Here are my two oldest - so cute and so happy to pose for a quick picture.  They were having a great time!

We got lucky enough to see a polar bear swimming around at the new exhibit and he even would swim up right next to the glass - such a treat for all the kids!

Tate loved watching the sea lions - the would swim past the glass and he would squeal and yell "fishy!"  It was so darling!

Hailey and Branson loved being down there too and while we all rested in the shade, the little ones would go back and forth between us and the glass to see the sea lions.

On of our favorite parts of the zoo is the bird show.  Even though it's the same every year, we never get tired of seeing all the birds fly around and doing fun things.  Tate loved it this year and kept yelling for the "birdies" to come back again!

We were really lucky quite a few times this year with the tigers, polar bears, and the elephants.  We happened by to see the elephants just in time to see them getting a little shower/bath.  There are actually 3 generations of elephants at our zoo and we love to see how different they all are.  Our favorite is baby Zuri though, she's so cute and just loved all the water.  She even walked right up to the hose to get a good spray in the the mouth!

Zuri's mom decided to get a little closer too and we got to see her playing in the water too.

Next we headed to the big apes building to see the gorillas.  We always have to get a picture in front of the building where the kids check how big they can spread their arms in comparison to a gorilla - still not quite as big!

The kids always love the big wooden elephant that sprays water.  This has been a part of the zoo as long as I can remember - even when I was little and we visitied, we always loved to stand in front of the elephant to get a quick spray of water to cool us down!

A quick picture of my three kids in front of the wooden elephant.

Next we headed to the other monkey building, but we had to pause for pictures in front of the metal gorilla - I had to keep Tate turned around and in front just a bit because I was sure it would scare him.  I was right, it did, but not until after we got the picture thank goodness!

Here's Zach trying to show the gorilla his muscles!

Hailey showed off hers as well.

On our way out, we stopped quickly at the snake house.  I would have been fine to skip this part (I HATE SNAKES!), but the kids wanted to go in, so in we went.  They were so cute walking around and holding hands.  The loved looking at all the animals in the inner atrium.  

I was even able to get a quick picture of the front on them too!  Although I guess getting them all to look at me wasn't so easy!

Ironically, we had a great time looking at all the animals in that area - even the snakes.

After we finished there, we headed up the long hill to the back entrance where we parked and hoped in the car tired and sweaty!  It was a hot, crazy day, but we all had a wonderful time and can't wait to go back again!