Memorial Day Weekend

We continued our Memorial Day weekend tradition of driving out to the St. Louis area for the Gateway Classic Boomerang Tournament.  We drove all day on Friday to arrive in Waterloo, IL.  We are so thankful to Chicago Bob and his family for hosting our family year after year.  It's so nice to have a home to stay in (and it's a pretty fun place!).

We started our weekend by driving in to St. Louis on Saturday and going to the St. Louis Zoo.  What a great zoo!  We had to drive around awhile to find a place to park - and then we had to walk a ways to the zoo, but with snacks in hand, we made the hike.

Emma enjoyed reading as many of the animal information signs as she could.

We all enjoyed seeing the Grizzly Bear.  Boy, was he big!

Emma made friends with an old looking chimp.

Rachel panda.

Heidi panda.  (Emma did not want to panda.)

This is a Rhinoceros Hornbill - it has got to be the loudest bird in the world.  We were in an aviary dodging a thunderstorm and met these guys.  Wow, are they loud!

After lunch, we checked out the map to see what was left that we wanted to see.

Heidi was very interested to see the butterflies.  She enjoyed them.  Rachel was swatting at them, and Emma said they scared her.  Heidi borrowed the camera several times throughout the zoo and this is one of the pictures she took!  Beautiful!

We LOVED the hippo habitat!  This is Emma's hippo imitation. :-)

She really enjoyed watching them swim by.

Emma and Mr. Hippo.

Sisters taking a break.

OK, it's a statue, but she seems to be enjoying this picture opportunity a little too much!

Everybody with the elephants!

They had a super cute baby elephant.  Turns out she was only about a month old.

We also got to see a baby zebra.

Emma and Heidi with a camel (hiding behind the grass).

The sea lion show was wonderful and we all really enjoyed it.  This is Robbie waving to the crowd.  Such fun animals!

After wrapping up our trip to the zoo, we headed back to Bob's house for a cookout with lots of boomerang friends.  A great evening and then Sunday it was time for the tournament.  Jason had the camera, so we have no pictures of him throwing (need to work on that next time).  This is me throwing the accuracy event with our friend Betsylew.

It was a good day - great weather - and everyone realized they needed more practice (that's what happens at the first tournament of the season).  Our girls survived hanging out at the field all day - coloring, bubbles, rocket balloons, and climbing on the benches.

After the tournament everyone returned to Bob's house for the post tournament party and awards.  Jason finished 4th overall and I finished many behind him. ;-)   We got up Monday and hit the road back to Marietta.  It was a really fun weekend with great friends!