Dallas Zoo

What's better than a day at the Zoo? A day at the zoo in the middle of a 21+ hour road trip!

A visit to the Dallas Zoo to see the Cheetah run has been on our To-Do list for the past year, and I'm so glad it occurred to Drew to stop on our way home from Michigan! We had to wake up extra early to make it there in time, but it was totally worth it.

The kids were thrilled to be out of the car. (As were the adults.)

 

Our first order of business was visiting the Cheetah!

Cheetahs are one of Lilly's favorite animals, and she's been asking to see one run for quite awhile.

 This one has been raised from birth, along with a dog "brother," and they both seemed super tame. Apparently cheetahs aren't much for fighting anyway, they often get their food stolen by other predators after they work so hard to catch it. They are also endangered because they can legally be killed by farmers whose animals they try to eat. There is a cool Cheetah Conservation Fund that raises dogs to give to these farmers, in order to scare away the cheetahs without harming them, which I thought was kind of neat.

The trainers used a toy to encourage the cheetah to show off his super fast running skills, and then they walked him around with treats so we could get a better look.

Granted, Lilly did request to see one run "in the wild," but I think this will suffice for now.

Not to mention it was way closer to us than I would dare to get in the middle of the African Savannah. :)

 We also got up close and personal with some other animals. 

Henry was especially excited to see the giraffes, and even more so to feed them.

Check out that tongue! 

  

It was a great morning at the zoo!

 

Will's Wedding

Since we had such a successful drive to Michigan at Christmas, we decided to do it again! Call us crazy, but we managed to make it there and back without too much pain or whining. Okay, I whined a little. :) 
But the two day drive was totally worth it, because we got to have so much fun with all our Tack/Wilson family! And we got to be a part of Drew's brother Will's beautiful wedding to the amazing and lovely Brennan!

We arrived a few days before the wedding, so we got to help decorate the reception hall and just relax and spend time with all the other family members who were in town. 
Including getting to meet some new cousins!

The night before the wedding we had a rehearsal dinner with the wedding party. Drew was a groomsman, and Lilly and Henry were a flower girl and ring bearer, respectively. We ran through the ceremony a few times and then ate way too much pizza. Also, here's more proof that Henry has an irresistible urge to be silly in all pictures.

On the day of, we all got dressed up and ready for action!

The ceremony was beautiful, and Lilly was an excellent little flower girl. Henry got scared at the last minute and didn't enter as planned, but he jumped into action when it was time to exit! Grabbing his little ring box, he darted down the aisle after the rest of the wedding party (to giggles and smiles from the other guests). He was pretty proud of himself. 

 

And Lilly didn't feel her job was done until she had gathered all her petals back up. :)

While we waited for dinner to begin, Henry made sure to give everyone hugs. And Lilly was in heaven with all her little girl cousins.

The reception was gorgeous, right down to the mismatched china plates. The kids decided that Grammy's table was more exciting than ours. We danced the night away. Or in Lilly's case, cartwheeled the night away. She and her cousin, Ella (not pictured), exhausted themselves doing cartwheels for hours. Literally, hours.

We finished out the weekend by spending Sunday in our pjs, playing at Oma and Opa's house, and eating a delicious curry dinner with the Wilson fam. 

Perfect way to end the trip.

It was sure hard to leave behind such fun people.

 So who wants to throw the next wedding? ;)