Luke turns 3 and a trip to the Cleveland Zoo

It is so hard to believe that in a few days Luke will be three! He has already been through so much and has come so far along with his cleft lip and palette. His speach continues to amaze us all the time.

Here is a picture of his favorite character, Thomas the very useful train. Luke loves watching Thomas and anything that has to do with cars, trucks, machines, or your typical "boy" stuff. He is certainly all boy!

We asked Luke what he wanted to do for his birthday. He said he wanted to go see the animals. So we went to the Cleveland Zoo. Despite some of the construction going on up there, it was a fairly pleasant day and very few people around. We didn't have any problems seeing the animals at all. In fact, most of them were out in plain sight. Usually we go when it is a hot day and the animals are trying to stay in the shade or in their hiding spots, but not this time.

Both kids really had a lot of fun. They were so excited the night before that they hardly slept, we almost decided not to go. But in the end we did and had a lot of fun. The best part of the trip was the drive back home. Both kids fell asleep shortly after we left, and well, daddy fell asleep the quickest. Poor mommy had to drive us all home and still stay awake herself. God was with us.

In the second picture Luke is being all "cool" like riding on daddy's shoulders. This is one of his favorite positions once he is up there. He perches and looks around.

The bottom two pictures are of Hannah and Luke climbing on some artificial termite mounds from the Australia area of the zoo.

The only dissappointing thing about the trip was that Hannah never got to see any elephants. It appears that they are completely redoing the pacaderm building by tearing it down, which they were in the process of doing while we were there. By the time it is done in 2011, it will be 4 times the old size and able to have more elephants as well.

On a personal note, I'm sorry I haven't been blogging much lately, but hopefully now that things are finally getting settled down, I will be able to do more. Blessings to all of you. Papa Eagle. (John)