Safari

Last weekend we went on a Safari with our friends!

About twenty minutes away from us there is a place called The Wild Wilderness Drive Thru Safari. It is awesome! For those of you in Idaho, it is similar to Bear World, but better. It is only $10 a person (under 3 is free) and there are a TON of animals that you can see. It starts off with the drive through where you can see so many animals: llamas, deer, buffalo, emu/ostrich, tigers, lions, monkeys, all kinds of birds, zebras, camels, alligator, donkeys and a hippo. There are more but those are the ones that I can remember and identify when I look through all of our pictures. The ostriches were crazy. They would get right up to the car and press their beaks up against the windows. Harper loved it!!

The girls in the back seat. Me, Harper, Myma, and Missy. We took them out of their car seats so that they could see better.

After the drive through area you can park your car and go to the petting and walk around area. In the petting area they have the usual like goats and pigs but they also had KANGAROO! We didn't get to pet them but we got really close and they were adorable. They were sleeping and there was a little joey sleeping in his mama's pouch. They also have monkeys in the petting area.

Harper LOVED feeding the goats. I would put the food in her hand and she would hold it out and let the goats eat it. She wasn't afraid at all. This little girl loves animals!

In the walk around area they have lots of other kinds of animals too. A lot of different kinds of monkeys. We also saw a porcupine, turtles, aardvarks, snakes, birds, a giraffe, camels, and a baby bear cub!

It was so much fun! We were there for a long time and by the end Harper was definitely ready to go as you can tell in this picture.

Hopefully this post will give all of our family and friends more incentive to come and visit us so that we can take you there!

March First Friday

Here in Bentonville they have a thing called First Friday where they have fun events at the Bentonville square on the First Friday of each month.

This month was a St. Patrick's Day/Celtic themed event. They had the usual pony rides and a giant blow-up slide and food and vendors. To go along with the theme, they had Irish dancers and Celtic music and a redhead contest and a freckle contest. We missed the start of the children's redhead contest but at the end they said that they all won. (I am pretty sure that if Harper were on stage she would have dominated!) We were there for the adult redhead contest. I took Harper up on the stage with me and I was up against four other people. They had the audience applause for who they thought was best and I think I got second place. The girl that won was from Scotland. How do you beat that? It was still really fun. Unfortunately, the only picture I got is the one at the top of the blog now. I think Ryan may have gotten one of Harper and me up on stage with his phone. I'll try to get that.

Playing in the Snow

When we lived in Idaho Harper was too young to play in the snow. When we got so much snow this weekend we had to take advantage of it and have Harper experience the joys of playing in the snow. We bundled her up and headed outside to build a snowman.

Harper and Daddy getting started.

Harper trying to have the snowman's nose for a snack.

Harper, Daddy and the snowman.
(It wasn't the best packing snow so it took a while and the snowman wasn't that big. It still looked great though.)

Raspberries on Daddy's Tummy

Just watch. It is so cute and funny!

Fun Times in Illinois

We had a lot of fun while we were staying in Illinois. I had my birthday while we were there and I decided that I wanted to go to the zoo for the day. It was a lot of fun! I will spare you all of the boring pictures that we took of the animals and just post the good ones of us.

Harper and I doing a puzzle with a zoo worker.

Harper as an elephant.

Harper's hand and a gorilla hand.

Harper and me in the monkey house.

Harper and Ryan in front of the lions.

These are just some funny pictures of some of Harper's crazy bed head. It was out of control this particular morning.

I was sitting at the table having breakfast and I looked over and saw this. Harper had climbed into her toy box and she looked quite proud of herself.

Harper had her first carousel ride at the Gurnee Mall in Illinois.

We of course had to go to a Cubs game while we were in Illinois. Actually, Ryan ended up going to three in one week. Harper and I went to two of those. (Thanks to Stub Hub, we got tickets for really cheap. For one game our tickets were only 50 cents.) They were so much fun! It is true what they say about Cubs games at Wrigley field. They are like no other.


Waiting to get on the L train.

The Wrigley Field sign.

Ryan and Harper down by the field.

Harper's adorable Cubs outfit.

Last Night with The Allisons

While we lived in Rexburg we spent many a Sunday with the Allisons. Janis is Ryan's Dad's sister. Her husband and their children lived really close so we were able to spend a lot of time with them. Our time with them usually consisted of playing games and telling fun stories. It was good times. We will miss them!

These two pictures are of the last night we had with them. We played Apples to Apples.

Sad Goodbyes

When we left Rexburg we left behind some family and friends that we will miss a lot! Our friends the Henkels are some of the ones that we spent a lot of our time with. These pictures are of a fun date night that we had with them before we left. The night started with bowling, then Wendy's and then we went to Walmart where Ryan and Chad helped unload boxes so that we could take them and use for packing. It was a fun night!

We all got the same score in the first frame!

This is a picture from a game night. We usually had game night with the Henkels a minimum of twice a week and sometimes it was more. We will really miss those guys!

Dear Chad, Crystal, Ella and Jackson

MOVE TO ARKANSAS!

Love, Abby, Ryan and Harper

Fun in the Sun

Here are just a few pictures from when we went to the spray park with some friends.

Lexi, Sophie and Harper (Neopolitan)

Laying in the grass.

Harper and Lexi hanging out. What's new?

Trip to Georgia

Harper and I travelled to Georgia to surprise my dad for his 60th birthday. We got there really late on a Saturday night, so we didn't even surprise him until Sunday morning. We wanted to do something fun to surprise him, but they have church at 8:30 so I needed to get up early so that I could get ready. Harper was still sleeping and I needed to blow dry my hair so I snuck into the hallway as he was coming back inside from taking the dog out and just quietly surprised him there. I didn't video that, but my sister and her little boy were able to get him good, so here is that:





We had an awesome week spending time with our family. I was able to see all of my siblings except for one (love you, Zach!).

We were able to go to the Farmer's Market in Marietta. It was a lot of fun! Please excuse the way I look. Emmi and I had just finished working out. We threw on some cloths and took off to the Market.

Emmi and Devon

Devo and Harper relaxing while this is going on.......

Hayden eating a donut on a string. I think it was shortly after this picture that he bit his mother's finger. Ouch!

Hayden, Harper and Devo in the back seat.

This is just a random picture of Devo bathing in the kitchen sink. Harper did this too. I'm not sure why I only got a picture of Devo.

In my parents' basement they have ceiling tiles for a ceiling and my mom got a really cute idea from a teacher that works a her school.

They paint each grandkid's hand and put their handprints on the ceiling tile. Each family gets a tile. This is the process of doing Harper's handprint.

She was really confused. (nice shot Ez)

Below, is just a random picture that I took, but if you look closely at Hayden's foot, you can see that he is wearing his cousin, Elle's shoes. Pretty darn cute!

Ryan's a Big Sister

No, Ryan Bell is not a big sister. Our neighbors' daughter, Ryan, is a big sister.

(This post is going to get confusing. When I'm talking about my husband, I will say Ryan B. and when I'm talking about the little girl, I will say Little Ryan.)

A couple of Fridays ago we were playing Bocce Ball in the back yard with our friends the Henkels. As we were playing our other friend Will drove up on his way home from work and said that his wife was in labor. He told us that he was going to check on her and if she was alright then they'd be out to play with us too. (Later they told us that she texted him at work saying "We might be having a baby tonight, but if not we're hanging out with the Bells and Henkels.") It took him a while to come back out and when he did he was alone. He told us that they needed to go to the hospital and asked us if we would be able to watch Little Ryan for them. We stopped the Bocce Ball game and moved the games inside to our place. After we got Little Ryan to bed we resumed the games.

We received a text message from Will around midnight letting us know that Little Ryan's new baby brother was here!

Little Ryan woke us up around 6:30ish the next morning.

She had breakfast and played and had a nap and then we were on our way to go see her baby brother.
She was so excited!!!

This next picture is of me holding the new baby. I haven't told you his name yet because we have a funny joke going on with our friends. When we first started becoming close friends with them, they were pregnant with Ryan. We would always joke and say that they liked us so much that they named their kid after Ryan. Haha. Well, that became even more apparent when they told us that they were naming their little boy, Owen. (For those of you who don't know, my maiden name is Owen.) Owen Eugene....Harper Jeane. I mean come on! Even though they aren't really naming their children after us, it's still fun.

Congratulations Will and Nicole! We love you and we're going to miss you so much when you move! Hopefully, we'll move close by!

Summer's Here!.....

Hopefully. You never really know here in Rexburg whether Summer is here to stay or not. Last year we thought it was here and it snowed in June, yes June. A good sign that Summer is in fact here is that the canals are full and flowing with water from all of the snow melting off of the mountains. So, hopefully Mother Nature is satisfied with the amount of snow she has given us this year.

We had a four day weekend this past Memorial Day weekend. Of course Ryan had Monday off and he also had Tuesday off. We just did a lot of relaxing and spending time with each other. We had a little BBQ at our place on Saturday with our newlywed friends Jarom and Jamie. Then on Monday we had some burgers at Ryan's aunt and uncle's place. After we ate, they took us out to the cemetery and we got to see where some of Ryan's relatives are buried.

The Spray Park (mini water park) has opened up, so we decided to take Harper on Tuesday and see how she liked it. It was kind of chilly, so she didn't really get into it that much.

(I apologize for having her pacifier in her mouth in the pictures. She has learned how to grind her teeth. I can't stand the sound and it is obviously not good for her to do that. I'll try to be better about taking it out for pictures.)

The other day my friend, Sam, called and asked if we wanted to join her and her daughter, Alexia, in their little baby pool. Of course we wanted to, so she brought the pool over and we had a great time.

Ella, Lexi, Sam and Harper

The girls are very good at splashing and they managed to get a lot of water out of the pool and onto their mothers.