Penny's Visit

One night as Bryn and I were finishing up her bedtime routine and she turns to me and says, "Momma. Miss Penny. Miss Aubrey. Miss Baby Helen." She paused for a moment and then added, "Miss Philip." The way she said it, was so forlorn that it nearly broke my heart. As I have previously mention, Miss Bryn is going into withdrawals from missing all her sweet little friends. When we learned that our good friends the Quebes were coming to Utah for a wedding, we were ecstatic. Aubrey and I made plans to get the girls together at Hogle Zoo. I told Brynlee that Penny was coming for a visit the day before and this proved to be a very good bargaining chip. Bryn put on her best behavior to ensure that she would be able to play with Penny.

When we first got to the zoo, I was curious as to how the two girls would react to seeing each other. It has been over a month since the girls last saw each other, and given Bryn's new shy-guy act, I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out. Bryn saw Penny. Penny looked at Bryn. Big smiles showed up and their little friendship picked up right where they had left off. The two girls held hands for the first hour and then the air was filled with giggling and shrieking for the rest of the afternoon. All I heard was, "Bryn! Bryn, over here!" "I'm coming Penny!" and the two just ran around all afternoon. I thought that they would eventually run out of energy, but they just seemed to feed off each other. It was so good to get a glimpse of the old Brynlee.

Aubrey was there with her parents which made things so much easier. It was great to have extra hands and eyes watching the girls. Hudson was a dream and literally slept the entire day. He woke up briefly while we were at the carousel to eat, share a few smiles, and then promptly went back to sleep. Bryn still remembers that she rode on a "dolphin" and that Penny rode on "Crush" (that's what she calls all Turtles. . . thanks Nemo). After a short snack break and rehydration, they were off again. I was surprised how many animals that the Hogle Zoo had that the National Zoo didn't have. Bryn loved seeing the giraffes, elephants, and especially the new polar bear exhibit.

These little cheezer smiles sum up our day perfectly. It was so much fun catching up with good friends. We can't wait for them to come to Utah again. And Bryn finally ran out of gas. She was fast asleep before we even made it out of the parking lot.