Summer Weekend Warriors 6/9 - Heart Surgery and Dinosaurs

Saturday Lucy and I headed down to Rochester, MN to visit my grandma, who recently had heart surgery. My mom had been there all week and everyone else had headed home, so it was just us girls. Grandma had a rough morning but chatted with us a bit and enjoyed Lucy’s company in the afternoon. We were able to take Mom out for lunch and had some good time to catch up.

Lucy had fun marching in front of the big windows in the family waiting area.

Sunday we spontaneously decided to take a trip to the Minnesota Zoo. We hadn’t been in about a year, and weren’t making very good use of our membership! We went early in the morning to beat the heat, and spent a couple of hours enjoying the animals. It’s a little bit easier now because Lucy can walk around on her own more, although we still push a stroller for her to ride once in awhile. She had a good time and we even got her to wear a new hat.

How did this girl get to be so big?

This reminds me of how my Grandpa Lyle used to wear his farm hats!

The highlight was the new dinosaur exhibit, which features prehistoric animatronics. We were excited to see it, but as we approached quickly realized this may not have been the greatest idea. The dinosaurs were super cool, but kind of scary for little ones! As we entered Lucy got a glimpse of the T-Rex and started shaking and clinging to me. We got past it by looking the other way and then focusing on the “longneck” (brontosaurus) which was a little less scary. Thank goodness for the children’s dinosaur movie “Land Before Time.” By referring to Littlefoot and all of his friends, we were able to get through the exhibit. There didn’t seem to be any lasting effects of the “scary” experience, so that was good!

This was pretty much how we went through the exhibit.

You can see how a guy like this, moving and making noise, could be a tad scary!

She made friends by the end. This one sat still. :)