Making up for lost time: the November edition

The timing of Billy's return could not have worked out better with the kids' school calendar. Alexa had the first Monday and Tuesday of November off, and we took advantage of the four day weekend by traveling down to Cincinnati for the weekend. We visited the Creation Museum in Kentucky...

The museum has beautiful grounds and gardens, and the petting zoo is always a favorite with the kids...as is the suspension bridge!

We also visited the Cincinnati Zoo. They had begun decorating for Christmas, and every time Brody passed one of these houses, he had to stop and have his photo taken in front of it!

Alexa enjoyed climbing on the 'spider web' play area!

This little squirrel gave us a laugh as he hopped down from the tree to gather fallen Ritz Crackers, then hauled them back up for an afternoon snack!!

Having never been to this zoo, we had to rely on our map to get around...apparently Brody didn't feel we were doing a very good job with navigation and decided to take over!

We were sad to see Halmoni leave on the 6th of November, but glad she was able to make it back to Utah before the birth of her newest grandchild, Soren Campbell (who made his arrival on 11/18). And, we knew we'd see her again just six weeks later when we traveled to Utah for Christmas.

Billy's leave ended mid-November and he had to return to work after Veteran's Day weekend...thankfully, his 'work' was now just down the road! We didn't do a great job taking photos during the month of November, though we did travel to Iowa over Thanksgiving and enjoy a few days catching up with friends and eating lots of yummy food!

To end with a cute kid story, I had mentioned to Alexa that we needed to organize our bookshelf which held all of her and Brody's books. It was hard to find anything on it anymore! We had agreed we would tackle the project together one weekend, and while I was finishing up on some things downstairs, Alexa headed up to begin organizing. When I walked upstairs, I found this:

She had already taken 2/3rds of the books of the shelves and stacked them according to category! :) The re-organizing went quickly after all of her hard work! I just didn't realize the 'organization gene' could be inherited!

Later that evening, when I grabbed my camera to show Billy the photos I'd taken of her hard work, I also discovered these which she had taken when I left my camera upstairs!! Apparently, the 'dramatic gene' can also be inherited...