Labor Day Fun!

We crammed as much fun as we possibly could into Labor Day. We got up pretty early and arrived at the Dallas World Aquarium around the time it opened. It's such a cool place which is actually more like a mini-zoo than just an aquarium. Marty's dad bought us all season passes to the aquarium which was so generous and now we can go whenever we want and just stay for a little while instead of feeling like we have to stay all day because it's so expensive. Marty parked the car and the kids and I hung out for a few minutes.

And while we were waiting, Lauren noticed a peace sign (she's slightly obsessed with them) carved in the concrete. So she had me take a picture of her foot by it.

The first thing we came to in the aquarium was this cute little bird perched on a sign just looking so friendly. He was just hanging out with all of the people. And then Lauren decided to pet him and he bit her! So we moved on!

And here's just a bunch of random pictures from the aquarium. The jellyfish were really cool. (Has anyone seen 7 Pounds with Will Smith? AWESOME movie! If you've seen it, you'll know why I made that reference here. If not ... rent it!) The walk-through shark tunnel is neat, too. And the penguins are cute but they stink!

After the aquarium, we headed over to Spaghetti Warehouse in the West End. Surprisingly it wasn't busy at all. Guess we got there early enough and we got to sit in the trolley which the kids love. As a side note, I was a hostess at this Spaghetti Warehouse off and on for a year or two when I was home from college in the summers and holidays. When I told Lauren that, she asked why no one recognized me. And I'm thinking ... because some of them weren't even born yet when I was working there!

And here's a picture of the kids after lunch in the arcade at Spaghetti Warehouse.

On the way home, we were driving through Duncanville so I called Mom to see if we could stop by for a little while. It's always nice to see Grandma Rilla!

It had already been a long day and Marty and I were trying not to fall asleep on Mom's couch! But there was no time for sleeping. We had to get to the grocery store because we had company coming to our house.

My friend Claire and her kiddos came over for dinner. We grilled chicken and hot dogs and the kids played and we hung out and chatted. It's always fun to have Claire over.

And at about this time, Lauren took control of the camera. Here is a sampling of the nearly 50 pictures she took! The cute brown dog is Happy (she's making herself comfortable on Claire's lap in the second picture of her). The skinny black dog is Lucky. And the ugly fat Chihuahua is Taco. He's so sweet!

And then it was eatin' time. Mmmmmm ... MEAT!

And that concludes our Labor Day fun. Well, actually it doesn't. Marty and I watched Grizzly Man and then went to sleep. (I may have slept a little during the movie but what else is new?) And that brings us to our music for the day. This is the closing song in the aforementioned movie. It's another movie you should see if you haven't. This is Don Edwards: Coyotes.