Koruna and Cabela's

While it is nice to tell Aurelia's stories in chronological order, sometimes an event warrants a disruption in the normal discourse. We have had an amazing couple of weeks in which we have spent much more time than usual with Koruna. Yesterday's happenings were the icing on the proverbial Koruna cake.

It is a little chilly here in Austin right now, so yesterday Jeri Lynn and I wanted to take the girls somewhere indoors. Jonathan had spent some time online researching interesting things to do around Austin and he stumbled upon a website describing a magical place called Cabela's, just south of here. Cabela's is a Texas outdoor enthusiast's dream. It is an ENORMOUS superstore of hunting, fishing and camping gear, sold amidst museum quality stuffed animals and a walk-through aquarium. When I say stuffed animals, I mean taxidermy-style, not Gund. There are literally hundreds of animals, presented in naturalistic habitats, from armadillo to zebra, moose to wild boar, plus more species of deer than you could imagine.

After Jonathan found it online, I talked to Jeri Lynn and she and Koruna were up for the adventure. We loaded the girls into Pearl (our car) and the adventure began. This was the first time the girls got to ride in a car together and it was priceless. Halfway to the store, Aurelia reached out for Koruna's hand. After convincing Koruna that Reli was trying to be sweet and hold her hand, that's just what they did - held hands. Tiny, adorable cousin hands, joined between their car seats. My heart melted.

Then we arrived at Cabela's. The place is so large that the highway exit is actually called "Cabela's Drive". Outside there was a kettle corn stand, like we were at the rodeo, or a fair. We entered, and it was fantastic. A table full of camo-clad vets raising money to our right and a man with a cart selling delicious smelling roasted nuts to our left. Country music was blaring from the speakers and overhead were formerly living geese hung from the ceiling in a classic V formation. Here we are upon arrival. It is amazing what this picture does not show.

While you can spot a few fellow patrons in the above photo, it is deceptive, as a good 70% of the patrons and store clerks were dressed in camouflage. They were hard to spot and we had to train our eyes to pick out the children in strollers covered with camo blankets, elderly men in full head to toe gear, and everything in between. The walls were lined with buck heads with enormous antlers and directly in front of the entrance, toward the back of the store was a mountain, complete with waterfall and stream, that displayed at least 50 animals - buffalo, grizzly bears, mountain goats, moose and polar bear among them. Beyond that display, there was an African exhibit. Here is a picture and video from that area.

Reli and Aunt Berry on safari:

There was also the walk-through aquarium with native Texas fish. Here are the ladies in front of one of the aquarium walls (hard to tell).

Finally, we found another large exhibit room, which had an animatronic fisherman telling stories about the Texas wildlife that inhabited the large room. The girls decided to sit in the shopping cart together and have a drink of water.

As I mentioned, we have had several opportunities over the last couple of weeks to spend time more with Koruna, Aunt Berry and Uncle Ian. What a lucky little girl Aurelia is to grow up around the Ingram family. Sigh. Jeri Lynn and I took the girls to the Austin Children's Museum. They played with the train set together.

Here are the girls playing with the toy Grandma and Poppa got for Reli when they were here.

Now for some Reli updates. She has grown up so much these past few weeks. Last week she started to point. She loves to just stick out her little pointer finger and sort of wave it around until she lands on something she would like to point out. She also started to let go of your hands, or the couch for just a few moments before sitting down. The beginnings of her learning to stand on her own two feet.

When you say "Hello" or pretend that a phone is ringing, Reli puts her hand to her ear like it is a telephone and says "Heh".

The last couple of days she has started to repeat the words you say, at least in her own way. I asked her if she wanted to get in her high chair and she said "Heh Chuh". I would have thought it was a fluke, but she has done it several times since then and Berry was there to hear it. Then we Skyped with Poppa and Grandma and Reli kept saying "POPP-uh". I love those tiny beginnings of her words. Especially when she says "MOH-MUH". These are some pretty special times.

Reli, being Reli.

And, finally, some videos of our girl. Aurelia was making faces with me the other day. This one is particularly precious.

We were putting Reli to bed the other night and she got the giggles when it came time for her night time lotion.

Bye-bye!