Special Titi Weekend

This weekend was such a great one.  Not that last weekend, a three day weekend, wasn't amazing too, but this one was jam-packed with fun activities.  I actually got out for a run on Friday night and it felt amazing.  We ended up going kinda late, like 6:45pm, which means we didn't get home until almost 9pm.  No, I didn't run for 3.5 hours.  I did 3 miles and then we played at a playground for over and hour and then we ran 1.5 miles home.  It was cool and crisp and the perfect running temp.  And Evan had a blast at the playground.  Pretty much all of our runs have a playground attached to the these days.

Saturday started off the same: golf.  It's fun waking up and spending the first four hours outside.  I love the outside and when it's nice I would be happy to spend the entire day out there.  Then I had a special day planned with my niece.  I have been looking forward to this all week.  We ended up not having a lot of time because I had to be back at the golf course for Mother/Daughter golf.  I wasn't playing (obviously, because I have no daughter), but I was helping run the event with the other coach.  So, my niece and and I headed over to Barnes and Noble for a special day at the bookstore.  It wasn't the most ideal place because Evan was with us and he doesn't sit and listen to a bunch of stories like we would have preferred.  However, it wasn't't too bad, he entertained himself with a chair for a while.  My niece and I picked out a short book for her to practice her reading and then we picked out a chapter book that we could read together.  I was really hoping for Little House on the Praire, but my niece is all about princesses and faires.  It was funny actually.  She would pick up every pink book in the store and wanted all the books about princesses and faires and it was even better if  the book was covered in sparkles and glitter.  Haha.  I wanted Anne of Green Gables or The Secret Garden, or Little House on the Praire.  Since I didn't want to buy a book that she wasn't going to read, we ended up with The Never Girls: In a Blink...which has faires in it.  And the book was pink and glittery, but she loved it.  Maybe God new what he was doing when he gave me a boy!  We read the first chapter while eating soup and a cookie.

On Sunday we headed to the zoo again.  This time with my other niece.

We had such a fun time.  It was funny because my sister had actually texted in the morning that my niece didn't want to go anymore (she was nervous going without her sister or parents), but I didn't get the text and showed up anyway.  We convinced her to come with us and she had a great time.  She didn't cry once!  And when she started to say she wanted to go back to the car and go home, we were walking back to the car anyway.

We pet the goats, which is my favorite thing.  Evan loves it too, but my niece was very hesitant.  She was fine until the goat turned suddenly, then she jumped a mile high and refused to pet them again.  As you can see in the picture (above), Evan was all about the goat food.

We also took the little zoo train which she loved.  Evan loved it too, he just doesn't like to smile on command.  We saw the giraffes, rhinosourus, elephants, chimpanzees, monkeys, cows, polar bears, and many other things.  We never have time to see everything, but we still had a busy day.  And both kids refused to sit in the stroller, so Ivan and I pushed around bags and drinks.

At the end of the day both kiddos were exhausted.  My niece fell asleep with her new polar bear in her lap.  It was adorable.

Then I got home, made a batch of chicken soup for Ivan and pumpkin soup for Evan and boiled some black beans to freeze.  That is my new thing.  I cook a bag of dried beans in the crockpot for five hours, separate the beans from the liquid when they are finished, freeze the beans and make Sopa de Frijoles with the bean water.  So quick and easy and now I don't have to buy any canned beans.

This is what Evan does while I'm cooking.

And between all these fun activities I even managed to do all the laundry and fold the clothes and even put them away.  Amazing.

How was your weekend???