Julie's Blog: Fun in Oklahoma City!

We visited Dan's family in Oklahoma City from the 22nd to the 28th. We were interested to see how Ethan would do on the drive this time, seeing as he has been down to a 1-nap day since December, and the last time we made this long trip he took 2 naps in the car. Thankfully Ethan did really well! We made the trip there (partially due to my lead foot) in 11 1/2 hours with only one stop for lunch. The roominess of the van and borrowing my parent's portable DVD player helped Ethan stay comfy and entertained. He watched lots of Veggietales DVDs, and each time the credits came on, he would say "New Vee" (translation "new movie"). He was mesmerized by the talking and singing vegetables ;)
We had a wonderful week visiting with Dan's family, and we took Ethan to the zoo for the second time (the first was in Sept.) He really enjoyed it, especially now that he knows the names of lots of the animals and the sounds they make. He particularly loved seeing the zebras, elephants, and bears.

A few random tidbits:
-We drove past a McDonalds in OKC, and Ethan looked over and simply said "burger". Cracked me up! He has only had McD's a handful of times, yet he recognized the golden arches.
-We ended up having to run a toll on a tollway because we did not have exact change. The toll was a dollar, we had 65 cents in change and dollar bills, but there was no bill changer. So, we threw in the change and Dan drove on to the sound of an alarm ringing. Fortunately a police car did not chase us down, but we were concerned about getting a violation because cameras take a photo of your license plate when a toll is not paid. Apparently the violation fine is quite high, and we did not want to have to pay that, so Dan called the tollway phone # right away. Since it was a Sunday the office was closed, and Monday was a holiday, so we had to wait to address the issue unti Tuesday. Fortunately we were able to visit a "Pike Pass" office and pay the 35 cents that we owed to avoid a fine.
-Ethan LOVED being outside and walking around in the beautiful OKC weather. When we left home, it was 43 degrees, by the time we arrived, it was in the upper 80's/lower 90's! Fortunately we packed for the hot weather. Ethan wanted to go on walks constantly, and he repeatedly brought each of us our shoes trying to encourage us to go for a walk with him. The last day we were there he walked nearly a mile with us without complaint (until we tried to get him to come inside ;)

Ethan with Grandma Q.