West Side visit part 2

Monday the 27th (Happy official bday Isabella!) took us to Indy. Zach went golfing with his brothers at Purgatory and we went to the Zoo! Izzy LOVED it. Grandpa loved it too, as the two of them quickly became buddies as he showed her all the animals, and took her to touch an elephant at the end of the show!

The elephants were definitely her favorite. She still calls them "ets", and grandma got her a stuffed "et" with a little blanket attached to take home. Great for car rides!

The Indy Zoo was really a great experience. They had a special presentation of Komodo Dragons. Who knew they were carnivorous and could be up to 300 lbs and take down a water buffalo? AND, that they would eat the entire buffalo (hoofs and all) except the intestines? Very interesting!
The dolphin show was great, except Isabella was getting a little antsy by that point and didn't really want to sit through the entire thing. It was a perfect day out, again!

This evening Zach and I had a dinner out alone (thanks mom and dad!) and tried the old "Maize" now called "Adelitos" (i think). Eww. And i really never say that about a restaurant. But definitely "Eww". We started off with meatballs. Zach said it's good to try something basic at a new place to see how they execute it. Well, they were okay. I would not order them again, nor would I really recommend them. The soup sounded great: a White Gazpacho (we both LOVE gazpacho, a cold tomato soup. White Gazpacho is cucumber based) however, a bland cold cucumber soup came out in a lukewarm breadbowl, which gave me the impression I was dipping warm bread in some dip I just pulled out of the fridge. Icky.
We tried 2 different tapas including shrimp skewers (funky smelling), chili scallops (4, which were about nickle sized coated with chili powder, just not well executed). They didn't seem to have a consistent theme going either. They kind of wanted to be Rustic Italian, but were serving foods traditionally from Spain, Ireland and Britain also. Tapas dishes ran $9+ and large plates, supposedly to serve 4? ran $35-$55. Now, if we drop $30+ per person for food, I expect my silverware to be of decent weight and not a paper napkin wrapped around them. And I kind of don't like sitting on outdoor wire cafe chairs, unless of course, I am outside. Just me.

Tuesday morning we headed down to Fishers to see the BRANDS!!! YAY! They graciously took Isabella's Two Year Old pictures for us! I absolutely LOVE their work, and if you ever ever need to create beautiful memories, they are the ones to call (when we went back to view the pics at their amazing viewing room, I was tearing up). Not only was it wonderful to have her pics done, but seeing my lovely Brookey and Dan was great! Fortunately, we had another glorious weather-day as the pictures were outside at a park not far from their new swanky studio! Thank you sooo much!!!!

Zach's grandma was in the hospital at St Francis with two broken wrists, so we stopped by to say hello to her (she's doing much better now) and then Zach was off to the airport.

Which left Grandma and Grandpa with time to pull down my old tricycle for Isabella:

Time flew by too quickly, and we were constanly rushing from place to place, but it was so wonderful seeing everyone again. xoxo!
Oh, and yes, Isabella talks about "jill" "ju-ey" "brook" "Dan" "man" (samantha, which comes from her obsession with your guys' picture on your biz card. i give it to her to hold in grocery check out lines- keeps her occupied haha) "kay-ee" (yes, she loves looking at kaylie's pictures) very randomly. Like, she will just walk up to me and rattle off in quick succession the six names above. You guys (well, plus gigi, papa, mama and pa) are on the special list!