Tanganyika Wildlife Park...

… by far one of the coolest places I have ever been!!!!!!

Get ready for lots of pictures …

Feeding the giraffe a very expensive piece of lettuce.

(one piece of lettuce cost 2 coins, each coin a dollar - I wonder if next time we can bring in our own?)

 I think this little joey has outgrown his pouch! Just wants to be close to his momma I guess. 

I absolutely loved getting to pet the kangaroos!!!

Blaykleigh stepped it up a notch and gave out hugs. 

 I just about snuck one of these home in my purse! They had the softest fur and the cutest noses.

Treats are serious business when you are a goat! 

Ellie and Blaykleigh checking out the shark-sized koi fish. 

Granny making sure Blaykleigh didn't join the ducks for an afternoon swim. 

Drew and his shirt blended in nicely with them lemur folk.

Baby lemur sitting on Blaykleigh's shoe & holding her hand. Presh. 

These little guys were very drawn to the cell phones! 

Granny made a new friend. 

See! What did I tell you. This little guy was desperately trying to take a 'selfie' … wonder if he has an instagram account? ;) 

They loved Megan <3

Iowa State Fair 2013

Our first Iowa State Fair! It was a very hot day (like surface of the sun hot) but overall we really enjoyed ourselves. From people watching, to loving on animals (my personal fave), to tasty beer, amazing food and rides. I think this is definitely something we will have to do again next summer. 

Enjoying a little state fair action. 

Fried food booth after fried food booth. I was a little disappointed that I never found myself a fried pickle. Next year! 

Beer run. 

Just our 2-year old showing her goat. ;) 

Horses look good next to me. Hehe.

I entered a raffle to win a horse. Sadly, I did not win. But one day, it will happen. It will! 

Going down the huge-big slide on a potato sack with her daddy. 

Aren't baby piglets the cutest?! 

A surprise in June!

This past June I turned 27 and got the most wonderful birthday surprise ever ~ a quick weekend visit from one of my beloved bff's! It was something totally unexpected and flew by way too fast but I loved every minute of it. Thank you Kristin for making my 27th even that more memorable. Love you!

While she was here visiting, we made an afternoon trip to the Des Moines Zoo! It was our first time to go and even though it is on the smaller scale compared to most zoo's, it was a pretty awesome place. There were several themes throughout the zoo that coincided with the country the animals where from, hands on interaction with some of the animals (Blaykleigh was a tad apprehensive about feeding the birds at first - lol) and it was laid out well! We will definitely be going back in the future.

Home is where the heart is.

Come July 19th, we will have been in our house 4 months! For the most part we have settled in nicely, although there are still things to be done … like finish hanging stuff up on our walls and painting along with other odds and ends!!! Slowly but surely we will get there! After all, with Jason's work schedule and my nursing school schedule things have been very fast paced around here, leaving very little "down" time. But what we have done so far has really made our new house into a home and we love it! Here are some pictures for those of you who have been wanting to see and I am sure as the months pass, there will be more to come.

4213 SW 4th St. 

(I borrowed this pic from the builders website, we've added a little to the outside since moving in) 

Kitchen

Living room

Blaykleigh's room

Guest bedroom

Well that's all I have for you right now! Our bedroom and the office still have a lot of stuff that needs to be done so those pictures will have to wait. Hope you enjoyed the tour ;) We miss all of our Colorado, Kansas and Texas family and friends dearly - you're welcome for a visit anytime!