"Vacation"

I took two days off of work this week because Mimi (Wilder's mom) had jury duty and couldn't watch Riley. Today we decided to go to Como Zoo becuase zoos are fun and Como is free. This was Riley's third trip to a zoo but the first since she really started to notice and be entertained by things. It was really fun to watch her notice animals as they moved around. She first noticed the sea lions and thought they were fun as the emerged from underwater. She also really enjoyed watch the giraffe's spots and long neck, the mountain lion pacing, and many fish. Her favorite by far were the spider monkeys. They were very entertaining and Riley loved watching them. They were swinging by their tales and walking upright on their legs and swinging from branch to branch. She was smiling and giggling and might have even squealed when she was watching them.

Sleeping as we walk back to our car at the end of the afternoon.

Three Ellies

Riley was given a yellow elephant name P'nut made by the Ty company from Pam, a friend of Robin. Using all of our creativity we decided to rename P'nut as Ellie (short for elephant). We had not intention of this becoming Riley's "lovey" but over time that is what has happened. She has Ellie with her every time she goes to sleep. The only problem is that Riley's favorite thing to do with Ellie is to chew on her trunk. After months of this Ellie is starting to look worn and grey. We finally decided that it was time to add more Ellies to our lives before Riley would notice such a twist. I ordered two more online after deciding that we would need that many for Riley to chew on. Luckily she had did not notice the switch to a new Ellie, or if she did she didn't care.