A Zany Zoo Day

Nate trying to do his chore with a monkey on his back. Asher kept slipping and sliding down his back, Nate would hike him back up. Nate doesn't get extra points for time management, but he does get points for being a great big brother!

A few weekends ago we decided to take the children to a nearby zoo. We had been to this zoo a few years ago, and had a great time. See the picture above? It cracks me up. Luke did NOT like the zoo. And I love the look on Asher's face, kind of saying, "lets put this wounded animal out of the den!" The rest of the children enjoyed it though, and all in all we had a nice time. Maybe zoo trips aren't for us right now. Our first trip was planned in mid-August. We were going to a really big zoo that time. We traveled up to the Madi grandparents home Sunday after church so we could get a nice early start the next morning. Monday morning, after a rather wakeful night,we woke up to three puking, feverish children. So instead of going to the zoo we went to CVS for some emergency medicines, and thankfully thought to bring a bucket along in the van for the long ride home (with a lid!). Isn't there a Bible verse about this? Man making his plans, but God changing them? :)

Not the best shot of me, but I like that three of my little men are with me. How big Nate is getting. All you can see of little, unhappy Luke is his big hat. To give Luke some sympathy though, it was a pretty hot day, and, I forgot the double stroller so he had to be in the mei-tei the whole day (which is comfortable, but gets hot for both of us), and to top it all off I forgot his pacifier. Of all the things to forget! And we were not anywhere near a drug store to buy a spare. I ended up stuffing his bottle nipple with the burp cloth so we wouldn't suck up air, and let him suck on that to calm down and finally! fall asleep. My only redeeming things that day were: I did pack lots of water, a pretty lame snack for the van, but a snack anyway and I remembered the camera, Luke's hat so his bald head wouldn't burn, and the Zoo member cards so we could enjoy this fun day gratis!

Our mountain goats. This is right as we disembarked from the van after a rather long ride with an extremely long, strange detour. It is gorgeous here, very mountainous and the views on the ride home were worth some of the headaches. Joel and I are so used to things like this that we take it in stride now. Emergency pitstops in the middle of extra long detours, (I won't say for who), children counting out exactly how to split two sleeves of saltines between eight people (what a lame travel snack, mom!) and "discussions" about just who had more than their fair share of the water. All to make family memories. And we did. The children really like the river otters and we had a great time letting them play in the wolf den (first picture) for a long time while I fed Luke, and we did two poopy diaper changes. People stayed far away from our little den of wild animals. Eli was howling the whole time too-enjoying the echo inside the cave. It was rather funny, for the first five minutes anyway.

Where O' where can we travel to next??!