Fun and Hats and Stuff..

So Uncle Jeff came back from his trip to Guatemala (no it's not in Europe), and with him he came bearing gifts -- a new bag and chocolate for me, a wallet for Brian, and a hat for Nora.

This green and yellow number became a fast favorite around the house, and out in public. Nora's pretty much worn it nonstop unless she's wearing her swimsuit bottoms as a hat...but that's another post.

Nora wore her awesome new hat to the zoo on Friday. She decided she liked this gal from Los Angeles. She had an accent that made me think she was from Brazil, but when someone is asked where they're from and they say "LA" you DO NOT say "REALLY? No seriously. Where are you FROM?" or you sound like a stupid hick...but I was hoping to speak Portuguese if I hit the Brazilian tourist lotto...

This is a great picture I snapped of Brian and Nora as they played near a fountain/waterfall feature thing (see below). Nora's begun climbing on everything...before, you couldn't get her to sit on a rocking horse or any of the cool sculpture stuff out there for kids. Now you can't get her off of it!
This is my artsy waterfall shot for your Moment of Zen...click on the picture for the full effect...
The big hit of the day was meeting up with my friend Karen, who I went to school with from 6th grade through high school. We both came from/escaped the same small town, and it was funny to find out we landed within 45 minutes of each other after all these years!

I hadn't seen her since our 10th reunion -- we graduated from a VERY small middle school that dumped into a much larger high school so it was fun to talk about who we knew and who we remembered and who we were in touch with on Facebook these days.

Nora really took to Karen and it was great to catch up with her. Since she lives close to the zoo, we hope to see more of her!