Today is M's last day of "vacation." When I say "vacation," I mean M spends the first half of the day working for the state while he uses vacation time. I spent the morning harassing him about how he is going to spend the second half of his last day of "vacation." I mean, seriously, it will probably be the last day he takes off this summer and the last time we could do something fun and LJ will sleep the whole time. But one huge problem we had was...the charger for the camera's battery was missing. That is why we have had no posts. The battery is dead and we can't charge it. After my morning grumpy sulk, M moved mountains (got the kids ready and got lunch packed), found a car charger for the camera battery at Office Depot, and we were on our way to the Point Defiance Zoo! We didn't get much of a charge on the battery between Gig Harbor and the Zoo, especially since the battery was in the charger backwards, but we got a few hilarious pictures. The pictures accurately represent a large family of personalities visiting the zoo.
The elephants did not disappoint today! They usually stand waaay back and keep their rumps facing the viewing area. Today, they were close, smiling, and tossing dust around. The elephants always remind me of my grandma. She loves them.
When I said earlier that our pictures represent "personalities" I meant that we are not a well-behaved group of obedient drones. We try, we even try wearing matching shirts so it's easier to count us, but some days we just don't make it. The kids can't smile (unless they are doing bunny ears on their siblings), they are looking the wrong way, or they are crying. Or I take the picture when Dad is telling a kid to "knock it off."
The clouded leopard mama looked hungrily at the crowd of small children. She was separated from her cubs and didn't look as though she enjoyed her "me time."
The clouded leopard cubs were very cute and curious. This cub was wondering where the body was of the floating head on the other side of the glass. (Sorry, that was a bad joke. S is wearing a camouflage shirt, so I like to pretend you can't see the body that is camouflaged)
F is a tiger (you can see the tiger trying to hide from the zoo visitors in the background). The tiger is one of the animals that always seems to be hiding. You drive all the way to the zoo and all you get to see is a bunch of plants! The polar bear is like that.
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| Me and my Six Personalities |
I sometimes think there is no polar bear at all at the zoo. I've been trying to see it for
thirty years and I don't remember ever seeing it. I can't believe I've been going to this same zoo for thirty years.
We love sharks! I almost got someone other kid in the picture. He looked like he could have fit in with our family. His clothes didn't match and he had a bit of the devil in him. He was standing in that empty spot in the picture...and D is trying to follow him.
"Look! Raccoons!" one of my children said. I won't tell you who shouted that out, but I'll tell you his name starts with S. If you go back and look at the pictures of him, you will see a big bandage on his knee. Just hours after D had his accident, S went over a jump on his bike and slid on loose gravel. Wearing shorts. I was watching. It was terrible. He ripped a huge hole in his knee. I was hoping he just ripped an old scar off (from slipping on ice while wearing shorts), but this one is about an inch above it. S will have one ugly knee when this one heals.
If you have one cute girl pose with the pretend lemurs, you have to have two!
We did the whole zoo and ended up in the play area where M and I "rested" and the kids kept going. D has a thing about spiders. He talks about them as he goes to sleep and he looks for them in every dark corner of the house. He likes to pretend his hand is a spider and it is going to "bite you Mama!" When he saw the climb-on spider web, he crawled right on and said, "Look Mama! I'm a spider! I'm gonna bite you Mama!" He then harassed the honey bees in the lavender until I actually used ice cream to bribe him away. "Come on, D. Do you want ice cream?" "NO! Want bees!" Grrrr. Ice cream won out in the end and we had another fun family trip... and yes, the baby slept the entire time.
When I said earlier that our pictures represent "personalities" I meant that we are not a well-behaved group of obedient drones. We try, we even try wearing matching shirts so it's easier to count us, but some days we just don't make it. The kids can't smile (unless they are doing bunny ears on their siblings), they are looking the wrong way, or they are crying. Or I take the picture when Dad is telling a kid to "knock it off."
The clouded leopard mama looked hungrily at the crowd of small children. She was separated from her cubs and didn't look as though she enjoyed her "me time."
The clouded leopard cubs were very cute and curious. This cub was wondering where the body was of the floating head on the other side of the glass. (Sorry, that was a bad joke. S is wearing a camouflage shirt, so I like to pretend you can't see the body that is camouflaged)
F is a tiger (you can see the tiger trying to hide from the zoo visitors in the background). The tiger is one of the animals that always seems to be hiding. You drive all the way to the zoo and all you get to see is a bunch of plants! The polar bear is like that.
We love sharks! I almost got someone other kid in the picture. He looked like he could have fit in with our family. His clothes didn't match and he had a bit of the devil in him. He was standing in that empty spot in the picture...and D is trying to follow him.
"Look! Raccoons!" one of my children said. I won't tell you who shouted that out, but I'll tell you his name starts with S. If you go back and look at the pictures of him, you will see a big bandage on his knee. Just hours after D had his accident, S went over a jump on his bike and slid on loose gravel. Wearing shorts. I was watching. It was terrible. He ripped a huge hole in his knee. I was hoping he just ripped an old scar off (from slipping on ice while wearing shorts), but this one is about an inch above it. S will have one ugly knee when this one heals.
If you have one cute girl pose with the pretend lemurs, you have to have two!
We did the whole zoo and ended up in the play area where M and I "rested" and the kids kept going. D has a thing about spiders. He talks about them as he goes to sleep and he looks for them in every dark corner of the house. He likes to pretend his hand is a spider and it is going to "bite you Mama!" When he saw the climb-on spider web, he crawled right on and said, "Look Mama! I'm a spider! I'm gonna bite you Mama!" He then harassed the honey bees in the lavender until I actually used ice cream to bribe him away. "Come on, D. Do you want ice cream?" "NO! Want bees!" Grrrr. Ice cream won out in the end and we had another fun family trip... and yes, the baby slept the entire time.
