Gunnar's First Birthday - Part 1

Better late than never...

I can't believe my baby is one year old.  You never know how fast time goes by until you have a child.  They grow so freaking fast it's amazing.  I can't wait to see more of Gunnar's personality develop, but I miss the little bundle that used to just snuggle with me all the time...

I took the day off from work to celebrate Gunnar's birthday on his actual day of birth.  Kevin and I took him to the Toledo Zoo.  None of us had ever been to the Toledo Zoo before and Gunnar had never been to any zoo.  We had nice weather, a bit hot but not too bad.  And the zoo wasn't too crowded because it was during the week.  All the animals were out and about and we got to see a bunch up close.  I think Gunnar really liked looking at all of them.  When we were looking at the hippo, Gunnar blow raspberries on my cheek for the first time.  It was one of those mommy moments you don't forget.  Kevin was able to snap a picture.  It was a great day.  :)

Cheers!

We started the day with birthday balloons!  Best $2 I've ever spent.

Weekend of Free

Labor Day weekend is also known as "Kevin's Birthday Weekend" here at the Haus of Kendi.  I wanted to do something special for him, but being on a tight budget ruled out all the trips I would have liked to take.  So, we decided to be tourists in our own town for the weekend.  And we managed to do it for (almost) free.  :)

We started with DragonCon.  I had been hearing about DragonCon for years but had never been.  Tickets to the convention were pretty pricey but the parade was free.  You go to comic book conventions for people watching and this one puts it all on display for nothing.  Kevin and I had a great time seeing all the costumes and celebrities, plus the trip down memory lane was fun.  Plus, were we ended up parking (for free) took us through a bunch of cool art I didn't even know was downtown!



The DragonCon parade starts with dragons.  :)



No comic book convention would be complete without superheroes





Back to the Future!!



Some of the random art on the street...

 





After the parade and taking pics with all the cool street art, we headed to Little 5 for some ice cream cones from Zesto.  With a Scout Mob offer, the cones were free.  I happen to think that free ice cream tastes better.  :)



For Kevin's actual birthday, we went on our first trip to the Atlanta Zoo.  Our new library cards came in handy for this one.  The Atlanta libraries have teamed up with the zoo for a promotion.  If you check out the zoo dvd, you get a free family pass for 4 upon return of the DVD.  That's right, the library sent us to the zoo for free!  It would have been a completely free day had we known that you can bring in your own food.  We bought some pizza slices for lunch.  We got to see the pandas eat and all the baby gorillas (my fav).  We even got to see them feed the male gorillas oranges, which was really cool.  Cheers!





Birthday boy at the zoo



We even stopped by the Cyclorama




Birthday dinner.  (I made the cake.  It was buy one get one free ;)