We took Shann out to dinner at Smokey Bones on her last night in town. The place was empty since it was still snowing out. The roads were not that bad. We had a great dinner and then came home for cupcakes and some more pictures.

I had to get a shot of Aunt Shann and the dogs. Rebel and Rowdy love Aunt Shann, and I think she feels the same for them.

We had to get a shot of Shann and Mike and the girls, just to prove Mike was here with us.

We will have to take these to phtoto shop to get the red-eyes out, but nice smiles!

Friday morning I woke up early to check the school website and I was happy to see that Paige and Megan had a snow day. We all went to bed hoping-expecting a snow day so it worked out perfect that Paige and Megan got to hang out with their Aunt Shann on her last full day with us. After sleeping in and having breakfast we decided to go uptown to check out some of the antique and gift shops. A few places were closed due to the weather but we had fun at the "Pink Moon Cupcake Shop". We each got a cupcake to take home for after dinner. The place smelled wonderful, like vanilla cake mix.

They have a cute little gift shop in the rooms next to the bakery. We had fun trying on fancy party hats!

Paige and Megan tried on these cute little felted numbers. Too bad they were forty bucks, cause they look adorable. Well at least we have a picture.

After the cupcake place we stopped at "B&B Scrapbooks" so Shann could spend her last gift card. Then we had to run into the grocery store to pick up some milk. When we got home we ate a quick lunch and then we went upstairs to hang out and get crafty.
Earlier in the week Shann and I decorated picture frames with this faux mosaic kit that I had gotten for 75% off at Archivers. We had so much fun doing them we decided to fancy up some letters too.
Funny letter story: We were walking around in Hobby Lobby the first day Shann was here. She can not figure out why they don't have Hobby Lobby out in CA. since their head quarters are in Utah. She loved Hobby Lobby, guess she will just have to come back and visit/shop more often.

Well we are walking around H.L. and Shann says I am going to get an S do you want a B? I said no I don't think so. Then Megan pipes up and says if you did that you could have B.S. Now remember this is out of an innocent first grader. She could not figure out what was so darn funny when we started laughing at her comment. So Megan ask what does B.S. spell and I tell her it spells bssss. Then Shann sees a cute little sign that said "The Queen is not taking an audience today". Shann said I should get that for Chelsea and hang it above her toilet. Then Megan throws in the kicker and says "and you could get her a B.S. too". Out of the mouths of babes.




After our crafts were finished up Megan got her poetry folder out and read them all to Aunt Shann. In Megan's first grade class her teacher gives them a poem printed on paper and they color a picture for it and add it to their folder. They get to bring the folder home each Thursday to share with us. She has quite a few of the poems memorized, this is great way to improve their reading skills and build confidence. Aunt Shann got a kick out of her reading and her drawings.

Here are our contraband photos from

Thursday afternoon Shann and I were out running errands. I took her to The Home Goods store (I knew she would love it) then I took her to Penzy spices (she loved that too). We stopped by Whole Foods to look around. She said theirs is about a third of the size of ours. We had fun looking around and taking photos. We made it all the way to the bakery before an employee said "You can't take photos in the store unless you are an employee." I should have told him I was a "secret shopper" hired by corporate. We thought these yellow beets were kind of pretty.
We thought of Chelsea and her tortoise Pablo when we saw these cactus leaves.

Shann was impressed with all the eggs...qail eggs up to ostrich they have them all.

Now what do you think they do with all this food? They can't possibly sale it all. I can't imagine that there are that many folks that come in and buy up all those escargot on a regular basis. Do escargot freeze well? Hmmm never really thought about that.
We did have some yummy corn and chicken chowder for lunch. It was perfect for a cold day.
We also shared a chocolate chip pecan bar, just the right amount of sweet and crunchy...yummy!
I just love their cupcakes, they make me smile! I have never bought one (I can't imagine that they are $3.99 good) but they are fun to admire.

This was the last photo that I took before we got caught. So enjoy, I probably won't be snapping anymore pictures in Whole Foods. We had fun and it makes for a silly blog post.

Yep, just like always Joe melts another heart. Of course that is not so hard to do with Shann . Shann and Paige have been loving dogs their entire lives. I wonder if has anything to do with their birthdays being a day apart. But anyways we all had a nice visit with Deb & Bud and Joe Boxer of course.We were able to get a photo of Paige and Megan with their Aunt Shann and Joe during a commercial break. Deb and Bud were watching Disney's "Incredible's" the kids acted like they had not already seen it at least 5 times before. Maybe they just needed to veg out after dance class.

This is what they had for lunch at school on Wednesday. I took Aunt Shann to the kids school to hang out with them for lunch. Megan bought lunch and she had a grilled cheese sandwich, tomato soup, crackers, carrots, a sour apple ice pop and chocolate milk.

The kids had indoor recess because it was snowing. Megan showed Aunt Shann around her classroom and introduced her to her teacher.
Then we went down the hall so Megan could show Aunt Shann her artwork that is on display.

I didn't have time to pack Paige's lunch because I was shoveling snow from our driveway, Linda's driveway and Raj and Suman's driveway. Thank goodness the snow was lite and powdery so it made for easy work.
Megan has lunch from 11 to 11:45 and Paige's lunch is at 12:15 so we ran up to Culver's and Wendy's for burgers and we ate with Paige and her friends.

After the kids got home from school and got their homework done they got baths. Aunt Shann was nice enough to help with the hair drying. I think she enjoyed it and it was a nice break for me.

The girls were off school on Monday (Presidents day) so we took Aunt Shann to the zoo while it was trying to snow. It really wasn't that bad. We mostly went from one indoor exhibit to the next. I packed us all a lunch and hot chocolate so we were set.Paige and Megan got a kick out of posing by The Anderson's sign, since I work there and all.

Our first stop was Asia Quest the newest addition to our zoo. Aunt Shann loved the the fruit bats and she got a kick out of Fluffy our 26 foot long python.


Bohdi our baby Indian elephant will be 5 in April. He's starting to look like a big boy with his tusk.
I like this picture of Paige and Aunt Shann grinning in the background :)

The girls had a little fun posing for us on the rickshaw. Aunt Shann declined the invitation to climb aboard.



Those are some BIG Tigers, just a whop in the head from one of those paws (even if there weren't big claws attached) would knock you into next month or farther.

Paige and Megan seeing how they measure up.
I wonder what that big kitty is dreaming about? Probably not Friskies!
Paige took a bunch of pictures while we were in Discovery Reef, this is a cool one of the hammerhead shark.

Aunt Shann's favorite animals to watch were the Gorilla's . They were all inside because of the cold and I think they had a little bit of cabin fever. I hope it warms up for them soon so they can get back outside.