Mother's Day Recap

This weekend I got the best of both worlds - a Mother's Day celebration in my honor and another in conjunction with my own mama.

Last year for my birthday we went to the Portland Zoo with 2 month old Penny, who slept through the entire experience. I saw that the weather was supposed to be gorgeous on Saturday of Mother's Day weekend so I made the request for a family outing to the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle. As we were getting ready, I was checking my facebook and my real life / bloggy friend Gretchen of That Mama Gretchen posted a picture of her family getting ready to go to the zoo too.. A quick text exchange followed and we made plans to run into each other there!

Since it was A) sunny B) Saturday C) Mother's Day weekend (1/2 off for mamas!) - parking was horrendous. If there is one thing that my husband can't stand it's trying to look for parking. We both grew up in the suburbs where parking is never an issue, but somehow I am more tolerant of this problem. He always teases me that whenever we go out to "treat" me, it's always in the city. Well, that's where a lot of the fun stuff is!

Nonetheless we trekked on, had a quick pow-wow with Gretchen (who was the cool mom and dressed up her family in preparation for their zoo visit!) and meandered our way around the zoo.

Thanks for the pic, Gretchen!

Penny took notice of a few animals - mostly the small and fast ones. Her favorites by far - the otters in the grizzly bear exhibit...

...and a mama wallaby with a baby in her pouch!

I'm really looking forward to many more visits this summer because an early birthday present was an annual pass so that Penny and I could take advantage of the zoo during less busy times and enjoy all the different activities the zoo has to offer (like feeding an elephant or giraffe for $5! Isn't that amazing?!).

 Afterwards we drove down to my family's for the weekend and surprised my mom. She wasn't expecting us because I had to gently remind her that I'm a mama now too - and there will be holidays where we celebrate on our own. Well, we visited anyways and on Sunday she and I had our annual Mother's Day pedicures and rounded out the weekend with some delicious grilled salmon and asparagus on the lake house's deck.

The weekend left me feeling particularly blessed for such a wonderful family. How did you celebrate?