Family, Fun, Fort Wayne, Football

Today we got back from our short trip to Fort Wayne. We were supposed to leave early, but did not get on the road until 10 a.m., and of course Fort Wayne is an hour ahead of us. We arrived around 2 p.m. and headed over to my cousin's house, Marci, to see her and her adorable son Michael. Michael and Zander are only 4 1/2 months apart, and that is about the same age difference between Marci and I. If Zander was born on March 17th, like I was hoping he would be, they would be exactly 4 months and 8 days apart, and Marci and I are 4 months and 8 days apart. But instead Zander and Michael are 4 months 15 days apart. We hung out for a while at Marci's house. Here are a couple pictures of Micheal.

Around 6:30 p.m. we headed out to watch my nephew Tyler's flag football practice. There is a girl on his team, and it was the cutest thing ever. She was practicing in an adorable dress, chasing those boys to grab the flag. She was so cute.

I just loved her dress, it was so cute.

My nephew, Tyler, is the one with the white wrist bands on and his dad, my brother Ryan, is in the blue baseball cap.

After practice we headed to my brother's house to eat pizza and spend time with my nieces and nephew. They spent a lot of time loving Zander. He got so many kisses from his cousins. They love him so much. They all wanted to hold him numerous times. Julia, the middle child, read to him, and sang lullabies to him that she made up. She also did cheers for Zander. Alyssa, the oldest, love giving him kisses and holding him and so did Tyler, the youngest.

Then today we went to the zoo with Marci and Michael. We didn't spend a lot of time there because Michael was getting a little fussy. But we went through the African Kingdom exhibit. My favorite animals are African animals. I love zebras and giraffes, and we saw both today. I love Africa, and even spent a 2 weeks in Africa, but that is another post. We saw a giraffe close up, and so its long tongue. You could feed the giraffe if you wanted to.A lion is what is behind us.

Zander and Brian getting up close and personal with a giraffe.

After the zoo we went to my aunt's house and visited with her and played with the kids. We left Fort Wayne around 4 p.m. and headed home. We went out for pizza at Aurileo's with more family. My cousin Den is shipping out to Iraq in August for his second deployment to Iraq. He is in the Marines. So 18 of us all met up to send him off and visit with him one last time, before he leaves for Iraq. We had such a nice couple of days with all of our family. I love my family so much and love spending time with them. I am very close to my family.