My mom hates the zoo. It's true. Growing up my sisters and I didn't ever make a trip to the zoo with our mother, unless it was with a field trip. (Our mom was a good helper in the classroom.) This is the first exhibit and she was already looking pretty happy that she came along with us. Can't you tell?
The best part is that it was not just her four grandkids, I also brought my sweet niece Emma (10), and my funny (I will share some quotes later) nephew Evan (8). So six kids on a hot day in the stinky zoo for 2-3 hours. Recipe for success. Meet Emma and Evan.
Sweet beans came too! She is a ham. I love this kid so much. I do wish my son didn't want her pink crocs though. Can we donate those soon Allison? Look she's showing them off.
Harrison loves the monkey exhibit it is his favorite! Here he is telling Grandma all about it.
Oh yeah and Lincoln came just to look cute. He did a good job.
This woman loves the zoo! This is Grandma Cheryl she makes everything more fun. The picture isn't too great, but can't you tell how excited she is just to be at the zoo?! I love her!
OK! So I had to come home and write down Evan's quotes from the day right away!
On the way down there Emma and Evan were telling me about a show they watch with their dad called "When Animals Attack". Emma told me about an alligator who pulled a boy under the water and chewed his arm off. Evan shared about a whale that took a woman 40o feet under water and she lived. I am wondering how this is measured, I don't trust it. Maybe he made that up? Then Evan shared a story about a man who lost his eye to a jaguar.
Emma told him it was called a cougar.
Evan said, "Who cares? Anyways, the COUGAR "attackled" a man and scratched his eye out, but the man had a knife and stabbed the COUGAR in the throat."
Disturbing right? But did you catch what made me giggle? He made up his own word. It was not attacked or tackled but a combination. At the time, I think maybe I just heard him wrong so I do not feel the need to correct him. (And I kind of think the word is awesome so I am hoping he says it again.)
While we were at the zoo we walked up and down the dreaded bear hill, it is so steep and difficult to push a double stroller up. While we were in front of the ?black? bear exhibit Evan starts exclaiming "There's an egg! The bear's egg is in there!" I smiled and let it go for a bit, but he continued to talk about the bear egg. He will be starting school in just a couple weeks and I did not want him to tell people he and his Aunt Andrea saw a bear egg at the zoo. So I tried to explain it couldn't possibly be a bear egg, because bears are mammals and blah blah blah... He stares at me for a while and says "Oh, well... maybe a bird dropped it." I didn't have the heart to tell him it was a rock so I just smiled and nodded.
On the way home he asked me "Do you know if pandas can climb?" I told him I was not a Panda expert and I couldn't give him too much information on this. He decided to take advantage of my lack of knowledge to make up a story.
"I saw a movie and they said pandas climb 400 feet into trees, I'm pretty sure."
Short pause
"And they climb even higher in bamboo, they said pandas climb 500 ft in bamboo"
I'm also not a bamboo expert, so I did not correct him, but I'm pretty sure Bamboo doesn't grow to be 500 ft.
Later he told me that men can be attackled (Yes, he really is saying my new fav word "attackled") by deer.
I asked what makes a deer attack?
"Sometimes when guys wear too much deer pee.... deer will attackle them. But I don't blame the deer... I blame the man... He wore too much deer pee."
Evan thank you for the information! I will remember to keep the deer pee to a minimum.
Last but not least, I saw a dead raccoon and made the "roadkill chill" face. He asked me what was wrong and I told him about the raccoon on the side of the road.
Another pause
"I like to see dead animals on the side of the road."
WHAT?!?!? What did he just say?
I couldn't let this one pass. I had to tell him how disturbing it sounded, he smiled and explained he doesn't like seeing cute animals dead, just nasty ones. Oh my what a funny/weird/exhausting day. I got an animal overload yesterday. Animals dead, attackling, stinking up the place, and so on. I'm glad I do not have pets, I couldn't take one more dose of animals this week.
No not the TV show! ME!
My friend Kelly has recently taken me under her wing and let me tag along as an "assistant" to one of her photo shoots. It was so nice to just hang out and take some pictures of some cute people! The best part was, there was no stress on me having to capture a good shot. I was just there to practice. Although I think I got a couple pics that I feel pretty pleased with.
I felt timid at first, like I would be a hindrance to Kelly's work performance, but she was super encouraging and let me kind of do my thing. What that thing might be, I'm not sure yet, but I will let you know when I figure it out.
I have tons more, some were good, some were very bad, but the best part is that I had a great time learning to do something I really enjoy. Kelly can I officially call you my mentor?
Getting my stinky face clean!
Love this kid!
Does anyone remember this show? A group of teens would get together at night in the woods and tell scary stories. They called themselves "The Midnight Society"
Well, That's not really where I was going with this.
I used to be so ridiculously scared of the dark. I had a night light for a long time, until I was at least eight years old. (I won't go into the story about having my night light taken away.) After my night light WAS taken away, I did not magically become NOT afraid of the dark I was still RIDICULOUSLY scared. What was an eight year old to do?
I would sneak down the hallway with my pillow and blanket to the bathroom. I would flip on the light and push my pillow up against the doorway, so the light would not shine under the door. I would sleep in the bathroom under full lights on the hard floor. I did try to go Stephanie Tanner (Full House reference) style and sleep in the tub, but it was not as comfortable as you would think. (Warning: this is the whole episode. I couldn't find the tiny clip or image.)
Watch Full House 5x03 - Take My Sister, Please in Drama | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com
I would wake up in the morning and sneak back into my bed before anyone got up. No one ever knew... or maybe they did. I like to think that no one knew. Anyways, that didn't last forever, I got over it eventually and now I yell at Chris for leaving lights on in the house at night. I can't stand lights on at night, but I still kind of miss my bedside night light. It was a fishbowl, with a turtle in a derby hat inside. How cool is that?
That I have a super cute new nephew?
He's a bit tinier than Lincoln.... ok a lot tinier
Who doesn't like baby feet? (Well other than that Burger King manager who kicked a baby out of Burger King for not wearing shoes)
I may be a bit biased, but I think he is one cute guy!
No! I would never let my 3 month old hold a one week old while his mom was in the bathroom! It was Grandma's idea! (The picture didn't come out to great but it made us laugh.)
I think my baby was that small once, but it's hard to remember when he looks like this. (Ryan said he thinks he knows where all the hot dogs went this afternoon. I hope my 3 month old is not sneaking hot dogs.)
Growing up we usually had snacks in the house. Normal kid snacks like: cookies, chips, juice, ice cream sandwiches or cones, crackers, frozen grapes etc. When I was younger I didn't have a particular snack that I liked, I might have liked all snacks, I'm not really sure.
I remember coming home from school and being too short to get into the cupboard. So I would climb up onto the counter and get my snacks out, go in to the family room and watch afternoon cartoons. (What ever happened to after school cartoons?) As I got older I started requesting certain snacks. My all time favorite after school snack was a sandwich bun from Grote Bakery and a Sunny D but the Sunny D had to be in an individual bottle. I didn't like Sunny D in a glass and the buns HAD to be from Grote Bakery. (Which closed in 2002 I think. So sad=(.) Every once in a while I would stray from my routine for a pickle, pickles are awesome. I traded in my afternoon cartoons for Billy Madison. I might have watched Billy Madison 4 times a week for close to a year.
Now I'm a bit older and I have two kids so my snacks consist of leftover banana, crusts of peanut butter sandwiches, animal crackers, goldfish crackers, whatever I make for Harrison that he refuses to eat etc. And I watch Blue's Clues and Wonderpets all day.
Hey speaking of snacks.... here is a picture of my niece having a snack when she was a little over 1 year old
What was your favorite after school snack?
Meet Grandma Sherry, Chris' mom, My MIL, Harrison's best bud.
These guys are always together. If you can't see, this is Grandma and Harrison just relaxing by the lake.
She loves this kid more than you'll ever know.
Hey! Who can blame her? He's pretty cute!
Even when we lived with them for a month, she couldn't get enough of him!
Thanks Sherry for loving on him all the time!
Harrison and Grandma B.F.F.
