The Thayer's, Zoo, DIck's and The 'Dood!

It's been way too long since the last blog post. A few things to catch people up on: our good friends from Whitman Joe and Minna, and their two kids Ellie and Cole came up from southern Washington to visit for a few days during spring break. They were our first over-night guests. We had fun playing Pinnocle, eating Flying Squirrel pizza, and introducing them to Settlers of Catan (with the help of Teresa). It was good to see them again and we had a lot fun.

Ellie and Abe sitting on the couch looking cute, and a little surprised.
Joe using his teaching skills and reading a story for Abe and Ellie.
Ellie sure likes her 3 month old brother Cole.
I got in on the story reading as well. And I seemed to peak Banjo's interest as well.

Emily and I each bought a year-pass to the Woodland Park Zoo. A bit ago we took Abe and met Sarah, Katie and Francis at a zoo. We had a great time, and Abe seemed to enjoy looking at all of the animals.
Abe catching one last look at a giraffe while Emily moves on to the next animal.
I had to put in a hippo picture for my friends Jimmy and Mary, who now live in D.C. They really like hippos. I mean they really like hippos. At Whitman they had over 15 stuffed animal hippos on their bed. And they each had their own name and own personality. Seriously.
After the Zoo we were hungry. So of course we went to Dick's for some burgers. It was Abe's first trip. Since he was a little too short to eat off the trunk, we popped open the hatchback so Abe would have a place to eat.
Abe really did attack his cheeseburger with gusto.
I got to hold Franny so Katie could get a chance to eat. Love that Dick's sign.

What would be a blog post without some pictures of Banjo? Here is how Emily likes to unwind after a hard day of work.
They look so happy, don't they?
Nothing like an evening kiss before bed.
Slurp slurp yum.