Mother's Day 2015

As Mike posted on Facebook, nothing screams Mother's Day like a Star Wars themed day at the zoo.  Vince had seen an advertisement about the Star Wars day at Franklin Park Zoo, and it suddenly became what we were doing to celebrate Mother's Day this year.  I must admit, we actually went to the zoo last year on Mother's Day as well, and it was a nice day.  It was only after we circled for what felt like an hour, looking for parking at the Arboretum.  We had no luck.

So going back to the zoo, with the added twist of perhaps running into stormtroopers or sand people.... well that sounded great.

We were greeted by a fabulous peacock showing off it's feathers

attempted (a few times), to get a photo with the kids on this cool giraffe bench

We had walked almost all over the zoo, and hadn't seen one hint of Star Wars characters... and the kids were getting hungry, hot, and tired.  Never a good combination.  We sat down for a bit in the shade, got Mike to buy us overpriced ice cream, and tried to recoup a bit.  Some people at the table said they saw the characters over by the far entrance of the park.  Vince suddenly got some pep and motivation in him, and we jumped up and headed to that side.  I only heard Mike describe this, but when Vince didn't see any characters at the gate, he started to slowly break down, and melt....  into a crumbling and defeated sort of look.  It was truly sad.  We turned down one more little side lane to make sure they didn't dart down that way.... when all of the sudden, there they all were.  In all their "movie quality costume" glory:

We got the snowtrooper

awesome Jawas, but missed getting a photo of his eyes

oh hello, x-wing fighter pilot

Vince and the sand people

Notice you won't find Zoë in any of these pictures... because she grabbing me to go hide in the corner with her, while she clutched onto me and secretly watched from behind me.  She wouldn't go anywhere near them.

The stormtroopers.  Both Vince and Luca were enamored. 

This was the best we could get of Darth Vader, very popular of course.  No one left him alone.  He posed for a few guests, then all of the sudden threw his cape back and walked off, he'd had enough I guess.  It was a dramatic exit, my heart jumped a bit when he walked by. 

After the Star Wars activities concluded, everyone could relax with a little carousel ride.  Zoë still wasn't sure whether a stormtrooper would jump out at her.

The last half of Mother's Day was spent at our dear friends house Kevin and Danielle.  We all had some good laughs, and some good glasses of wine.  Here's my mom and I after a few of those glasses, and a great evening