Akron Trip

Get ready for a lot of pictures...

My mom and I headed up to Akron yesterday afternoon to spend last night and today with my sister, Julie, at her apartment. We had such a good time! I hope we can do it again soon :-)

After the hour-long drive, we were hungry! So we ordered some pizza. To kill time, Julie gave us a tour of campus.

First she showed us the rec center. I went to Malone University, a small, private school. I loved it, but I gotta say, this rec center made me a little jealous that I hadn't chosen The University of Akron! By the way, their mascot is a kangaroo. Kinda funny, but that's why it's "Roo Town." This building is right across the street from Julie's apartment, along with the new football stadium.

Inside the rec is a HUGE swimming pool area with an Olympic sized pool and multiple hot tubs. But I thought the coolest part was this lazy river!

There's also a rock wall inside the building. Pretty cool! I'd be spending all my free time at the rec if I were Julie
Next, we walked around outside a bit. Julie and I posed under these sweet arches outside the rec
And I took a picture of this clock because I thought it was cool
Next it was time for pizza!

I had never eaten at Hundry Howies, but it was delicious. You even get to pick out whatever flavor of crust you want. We picked garlic herb crust, and it was amazing.

After pizza we talked and then watched 2 movies. I fell asleep during the second one, of course. It's what I do :-P Then we went to sleep in Julie's cozy apartment.

This morning we woke up and Mom surprised us with this breakfast spread:
Yum!! First strawberries of the summer
After breakfast, we decided to go to the Akron Zoo. I hadn't been there since I was about 3 years old. It was really nice! I actually liked it better than Cleveland Zoo. It was smaller and didn't have as many animals, but there was less walking, less vacant cages, and it was a lot prettier and cleaner. I really enjoyed it!

First we saw my favorite exhibit: the fairweather penguins
Oops...I mean THESE are the fairweather penguins ;-)
We thought this baby swan reminded us of The Ugly Duckling. He was adorable, though!
A cute lemur
I just loved these flowersAnd this little guy was Julie's favorite animal in the whole zoo. She just couldn't get over how cute his little mohawk was!
And we thought this guy looked like a gigantic Bugsy from the movie Bedtime Stories. So ugly he was almost cute :-PMom and Julie posed for a quick pic
Bald Eagles
Some goats at the petting zoo
And there was a cool little garden that you could walk through.
Here we are walking through the garden
And then my camera battery died :-( Apparently it either doesn't last long, or I hadn't charged it the whole way. Oh well, at least we were pretty much through the zoo when it happened!

After the zoo, we headed to Chipotle for a late lunch. I had never eaten there before, but it was delicious! Very filling, and very spicy. but delicious! After that, we spent the rest of the afternoon shopping at a huge mall.

It was sad to leave, but Julie will be coming home for a few days this month, because she is also getting her wisdom teeth taken out (I had mine extracted about three weeks ago). So it won't be too long before I see her again.

On the way home, Mom and I stopped at Stricklands for smoothies, and then I bought some flowers to plant in my window boxes. She's going to come over tomorrow and help me plant them. She used to be a florist, and obviously has a green thumb. I'm excited to start cleaning up the outside of our new house...we don't have much land at all, but it still needs a lot of work!

Anyway, when I got home, this is what I found upstairs (please ignore the ugliest blanket ever made :-P)

Don't worry, Max isn't dead. Just in a very deep sleep. lol...apparently these two bonded over the weekend. It's a little sad, though, because Max is going home tonight. We've really enjoyed him this week!

Happy Saturday! I think some R&R is in order at this house tonight! I'm tired, and Luke worked all day.