Memorial Day, Part 2

On our way home from the Smokies, we stopped at the Knoxville Zoo for Ruston's first zoo experience. We saw penguins... I don't know why I always love the penguins so much, but I do.

And we saw camels. They had camel rides (which we did not take part in), and the baby camels were out in front to pet if you wanted. This particular baby decided to give Ruston the up close and personal.
I'm not really sure what Ruston thought, but he was definitely curious, as you can tell by his face! Haha
We saw GIANT lions... the male was laying down, so we settled for a good picture of this female. The picture really doesn't do it justice... her paws were HUGE.
White rhinos. They were also huge.
I sense a theme... this was a HUGE bird... a condor. Once again, the picture just doesn't do it justice.
Same with these tortoises. I thought it was funny that they just put posts in the ground as a fence since they can't get their shells through that.

Ruston also slept through part of the zoo lol. You can tell he was definitely enjoying it! :)
We stopped to eat, and between every bite Ruston would make this face. He does make a good fishy!!!
We had a good little weekend together as a family, and Ruston's first experience sleeping overnight away from home. He is a BED HOG!!

Memorial Day, Part 1

For Memorial Day we decided last minute to make a weekend out of it and go to Gatlinburg and Cade's Cove. We were amazed when we drove through Cade's Cove because we usually see a TON of deer... I think we saw less than 10. Instead... we saw a bunch of these:

Black bears! See the three in the picture above? We saw 11 total, and there were three different sets of cubs. This one particular mama had 2 cubs on one side of the road and 1 cub on the other side of the road...

So she decided to cross the road, and one of the little ones followed. See the dumb bikers? They were NOT very smart in staying close while mama was crossing the road. It's NEVER a good idea to be in between a mama and her cub!

After Cade's Cove, we took a walk through Pigeon Forge, since that's where our hotel actually was. This was a gorgeous little water fall at the mill.
Yep, that's Jason's arm. He was pointing out these:
I love seeing ducklings with their mom. They're all so clumsy when swimming, especially in the current. This is how Ruston enjoyed the walk.
We stopped to listen to a little street performer sing, and Ruston found the wind chime... oops!
Finally, at the end of our walk, we stopped for some grub. Ruston was amazingly good during the day, and we had an old couple sitting by us that LOVED talking to Ruston and seeing his reactions to them. They said their youngest was 33 years old.

8 Months Old!

May 25, 2010... Ruston turned 8 months old, and here is the bear picture.

I'm trying my hardest to catch up. That month he was a VERY happy kid and really got to moving and grooving. He figured out that he can get places VERY quickly by army crawling, although he's been doing that awhile, he got really really good at it. He also prefers to be standing and attempting to walk than anything else. Mama is the sound when he's tired or sad, and dada is a happy noise. Nana also comes out every now and then, as well as baba.