Horses, elephants, and gorillas...oh my!

We are enjoying this beautiful Memorial Day weekend in Pittsburgh. Sunday we visited a new park (not so new to Gio and me but new to Bryan) for a family picnic, pint-sized fun on the playground, and meeting the horses. The county police horses are housed at a nearby park and the little guy loved them! He loved walking as close as he could to them and would have touched them if we let him. Oddly enough, as much as he loved the horses, he loved the sound of motorcycles even more. His face would light up every time he would hear/see one....I hope this doesn't mean he is going to be a rebel! Today we were joined by my dad for another fun outing, this time to the Pittsburgh Zoo. It is nice to have such a wonderful family zoo located to close to us. Unfortunately, it does not rank as high as Lincoln Park or the Phoenix zoo, both which were spectacular. I really don't think that Gio noticed the difference one bit, we all had a lovely day. The fools that we are went on Memorial Day afternoon and it was pretty crowded but the animals were still beautiful. Gio loved watching the flamingos, the elephants, and the gorillas. He even loved petting the cockroach, which I find disgusting but he seemed to enjoy it. Let me clarify that there were zoo employees holding a turtle, an iguana (or something that looked like an iguana), and a hissing cockroach. He laughed and turned away from the first two, but went right for the cockroach. He recently learned to say 'more' to accompany his sign for more and the entire time at the zoo, he continued to say 'more', 'more', 'more' and when I thought he wanted more crackers (of course, food is always on my mind), Bryan informed me that he wanted to see more animals-it was precious.

we're baaaack

wow, it seems like so much has happened since our family last updated the 5 people who check out our blog. We have been very busy traveling to Indiana for Easter, extending our visit because I threw out my back, and welcoming lots of visitors to Pittsburgh to help take care of Gio. I have always had minor back problems but never something so debilitating as this. Those who don't think it is important to bend from the knees when lifting 21 pounds about 21 times a day....I am living proof....bend with your knees!! Thank you, thank you, thank you again to everyone who helped us with our little peanut. Speaking of our little peanut, i have to find a new nickname for him now since we learned that he is allergic to peanuts. I suppose calling him 'peanut' is, well, mean. Thankfully he is a Class 2 on a level of 6 so it is not severe but serious enough that we have to see an allergist in June and carry an epi-pen on us at all times just in case. I had no idea that peanuts are in so many things that you wouldn't imagine. Pretzels, chocolate, and chic fil a are all off limits for now since they are produced in a facility that also produces peanuts or share machinery with peanuts. I'm having the most difficult time coming to terms with the fact that he will not be able to reese's peanut butter eggs at Easter...but I'm sure I'll get over it! Thankfully, the peanut butter i gave him, he didn't actually eat but he just played with it and then touched his face, which resulted in him breaking out in a rash on his face. The following day we had his 18-month well visit, which resulted in a double ear infection and blood work-what a lucky, lucky boy. When we have stressful weeks like this it is easy to overreact but it is important to remember that we have a wonderful, mostly healthy little boy and we are so very blessed if these are our biggest worries.