The Peytons: Fort Worth Weekend

At the beginning of June, we took a family trip to visit our old stomping grounds in Fort Worth. As always, it was such a fun and refreshing trip to go back and visit a town that was the start of George and my story. The first thing we did was tour the TCU campus. We stopped by the bookstore and got the kids hats and then explored around campus. It has changed so much since George and I were at school there and there are so many new and beautiful buildings.

But the classics remain, like this metal frog statue that you are supposed to kiss for good luck before exams.

And of course frog fountain, which is as pretty as ever.

I am so thankful for this school and the education, friendships, and overall experience it gave me... as well as introducing me to the love of my life.

The next day we took the kids to the Fort Worth Zoo. It is so impressive and beautiful especially compared to anything we have here in Austin. Ainsley was most excited to see the flamingos.

Everyone loved watching the elephants because they had two little babies with them. So cute!

The giraffes were also so beautiful and awesome. The Fort Worth zoo just does such a nice job of making the animals habitats large, open, and natural looking. It makes it so much more pleasing to visit because it feels like the animals are happy.

Look how close that white tiger is! Amazing! And I would love to say that my kids were as enthralled by that experience as I was but they are both full engaged in watching the ants - yes, ants, just like the ones we can watch at home for free - that were crawling around on the side of the wall. Sigh - kids!

One of the big hits of the day was the bird sanctuary part where you could go in with sticks and feed the birds. Everyone loved it!

Caroline had a love/hate relationship with this stroller. She was in and out of it the whole time. George had just a hate relationship with it because it had two messed up wheels in the front so he had to make it wheeley most of the time. Ahhhh - the joys of the zoo! ;)

The animal that Bailey kept asking to see was the penguins. He loves penguins just like his daddy.

The other thing that Bailey really wanted to do was ride the zoo train. We didn't make it to the train the first zoo day because everyone started falling apart and we needed to get Caroline back for nap time. But we planned on coming back another day to enjoy the new kids splash park area. So we came back the next day decked out in our swim suits to ride the train and play in the water. I only got pictures of the train part thought.

My baby girl worn out after the morning at the zoo water park. This doesn't happen very often and I was relishing every moment of those sweet sleepy snuggles!

Our last afternoon we headed over to the botanical gardens. Without prompting the kids wanted to capture everything we saw. Bailey took pictures with his camera and Ainsley sketched about it in her 'field journal.' Ainsley was pretty cute about recording everything in her 'field journal' the whole weekend. When we got back from the zoo she had me write out sentences about all the animals she saw and what they were doing and then she drew pictures of them. She worked really hard and she said she was doing it so that she would always remember our trip. Sweet girl.

Daddy and his little people...

Caroline, the great independent explorer... It was kind of a nightmare to watch her because all she wanted to do was jump in all the fountains and didn't understand why she couldn't.

Ainsley taking her notes in her 'field journal'...

Mommy's hot girl...

The turtle find of the day!

That evening we picked up some food and played around the rental house with our good friends the Bates'. I didn't get any pictures of it but the Bates also hosted us for an awesome swim party with our other friends the Davis'. Then one night the boys got together and did their shenanigans and then the girls got to have a solo breakfast the next am. Sadly we didn't get any pictures of those special times because we were too busy catching up, reconnecting and making sure our kids didn't drown. All important things. Still, we did get this semi-group shot the last night of our big kids and two of the Bates boys doing races in the backyard with George.