A win at last and a surprise trip to the Zoo!

I should've posted this days ago, but I've been busy with "life" for lack of a better word. I haven't even scrapped this week really.....it's been very strange!

Last weekend, Matthew's soccer team won their first game! YAY! Actually, it was the first time they even SCORED...poor kids! Us parents were SOOOO excited to see that finally happen for them. Afterwards, Matthew wanted to know if they could play the "blue shirt team" again next time! :) Now our next hope is that Matthew can score a goal in a game.....fingers crossed! we took him to pizza hut (his favorite) for lunch to celebrate.....go Choppers!

Then Sunday, we went to church and told the kids we had a surprise for them afterwards....we had a guest speaker, and my Brush Creek friends should know him: Rob Ryder. I walked in and felt like I was 16 again. I started laughing and I could tell he knew he should know me, but couldn't remember my name.....when I told him I was "A Caudle", he and his wife Suzette started laughing and then they were like, 'yeah, you do look just like a Caudle' (I've never decided if that's an insult or a compliment!) Then I reminded him that he was the one that taught me CPR, then I shook him by the shoulders and started yelling, "ANNIE ANNIE! ARE YOU OKAY?" gotta love the memories, right? so it was fun to see a blast from the past at church.

After church, the entire congregation ended up down the street at KFC for lunch....and we still wouldnt' tell the kids where we were going. Alaina, in her astuteness, proclaimed as we were leaving KFC that we were NOT going on any kind of vacation because there was no luggage in the back, only Zach's stroller (do we travel too much ya think?)....so she told Matthew that we were probably doing something just for the afternoon, and "definitely outside 'cuz it's nice out".....she's a pretty smart cookie sometimes. Matthew's a lot easier to fool, and of course Zach couldn't have cared less....as long as he gets fed and has a dry diaper once in awhile, he's cool.

So off we went to the zoo! I love our zoo. It's FREE! Can't beat that. The weather on Sunday was perfect for it too. And since I've been there umpteen times, I told Karl where to park where you don't have to pay (trying to make this a cheap afternoon, can ya tell?)......and the kids still didn't know where we were until we got to the entrance, and then they knew and were very excited.

So we spent a couple hours at the zoo....went to the Children's Zoo (which you have to pay to get into, but we always go to anyways because the kids love it so much) to pet the goats:

and I tried, unsuccessfully, to get my standard in-the-hippo's-mouth picture......alaina's almost getting too big for this....*SNIFF*.....and zach refused to cooperate, darnit.
we've never been inside the insectarium (because well...I DON"T LIKE BUGS!), but this time we went in.....Alaina likes butterflies, and I wanted to practice some macrophotography. I'm hoping Santa brings me a macro lens for Christmas this year......so hopefully Santa reads my blog! :) But I did pretty good even without the lens.....I entered this layout in a challenge on 'selective coloring', and I'm just tickled with how it turned out....cool, huh? I even took this picture through a glass window!

then we just walked around seeing the animals.....we got a snack (karl loves those gigantic pretzels.....i got a frozen lemonade....it was kinda hot out!) and i think we probably covered about half the zoo before we decided to call it quits and head for home. it was a good afternoon....a good surprise for the kids and we had a lot of fun. As you can tell, we're not ones to just sit around the house....we get bored doing that very easily!

Monday we started selling Girl Scout Cookies.....always a fun time......if Tatum wasn't a brownie, I'd be badgering all my KC friends to order.........we're trying to beat what Alaina sold last year, but I don't think it's gonna happen! Blame the economy I guess!

Tuesday Matthew had another soccer game. And it rained. POURED really...the entire time. In my brilliance, I forgot lawn chairs, so we got to stand and watch.......and most of my pictures turned out blurry because I was trying to hold an umbrella over me and zach and take pictures at the same time......oh well. they lost that game...badly. Matthew was having a hard time concentrating on the game...he wanted to play in the mud instead! I was glad when that game was over! We came home and I made a big pot of chilli!

Last night we had a game night at church and had a blast.....I took the kids to Steak n Shake for dinner and ate way too much yummy stuff, including a shake of course. BAD for the diet. I'm SOOOOO not going to be ready for a swimsuit on that cruise in 2 months.. :( I'm ready for the CRUISE of course! Just not the putting-on-a-swimsuit part! :P

Tonight is our monthly church study group....so I've got to clean the house, make a snack, and read the lesson. No problem! :P And that catches you up on us.....I'll post my layouts when I get them done, which probably won't be 'till the weekend since we have NO plans and that means I'm gonna scrap as much as possible! YAY!

I do have this layout to share......from our trip out to KC....I THINK i'm almost done scrapping it....maybe another layout or 2 to go! :P

and i guess that's it for now.....i'll update again after the weekend!