Monday Zoo Trip!

 Out of nowhere I decided at the last minute to take Emma, Lincoln, and one of the little boys I babysit to the zoo.  We had a blast!

The kids were so funny with this monkey statue. They asked me if it was alive before sitting next to it. Emma and Sammy kept patting it and talking to it.

And this is just a cute picture of Lincoln sleeping on a mattress in the living room. We are painting Megan's room and so everyone and everything was displaced for a while.

It's So Nice . . .

I love having Nathan home during the week. I don't know what I'll do once school starts again. Cry, probably.

Anyway, today we have had lots of fun! Monday is the "free" day at the Cleveland Zoo. I say "free" because while all we have to do is show our licenses to prove we live in the county to get into the zoo, we also pay a lot of taxes for this one free day a week that we only take advantage of about 3 times a year.

However, today was more free than usual. We hadn't been in the zoo for five minutes when a lady came up to me and asked if we wanted her Zoo Bucks. Zoo Bucks work like money for the extras that the zoo charges for: the dinosaur exhibit, feeding the birds, riding the train, camel rides, etc. They were leaving and she said her son hadn't wanted to do any thing extra and so she had an entire book of Zoo Bucks (which equals $12, but costs $10 to buy). So this is what we did with them!

Megan wouldn't let go of a flamingo feather she found. She carried it through the whole zoo.

I wanted a picture of Nathan getting his head eaten by this dinosaur,

but there were lots of people waiting for pictures. Dang.

Jeremy insisted that he doesn't like robot dinosaurs, only real dinosaurs. That's too bad.

I don't think he'll find many exhibits with those.

And here's Nathan's favorite quote of the day from Jeremy:

"Tyrannosaurus is a meat eater and we're meat!" 

Megan and Jeremy asked if they could do the camel ride as we were driving into the zoo and Nathan told them no "because it probably costs $4 a person." Which is exactly what we found it does cost.

But with our Zoo Bucks . . . ta da! 

Free!

So a happy time was had by all. We also. . .

Christmas at the Zoo

Today we had breakfast with some friends who were super awesome to prepare a wonderful meal including the most delicious chocolate-cinnamon rolls, or as Nathan called them Happiness Solidified, we've ever eaten. (Thank you, Weights!) After breakfast we all gathered together at the Cleveland Zoo to see Santa and his reindeer.

Here are some fun pictures from our adventures today.


Santa and Mrs. Claus were in the wolf cabin. When we walked in the kids had the option to make bird feeder pine cones, which was something I was planning on doing with them this week anyway, so now I don't have to buy bird feed -sweet!


Megan was the only one of our kids that wanted to see Santa and she almost chickened out at the last minute. She suddenly got really shy and silly when it was her turn and became super glued to my leg. Santa was great! He told Megan that she reminded him of a couple of his reindeer, that Prancer is the silliest of his reindeer and Doner is the most shy. That got her attention and she agreed to sit on his lap.
Megan asked him where his reindeer were kept and so when everyone was finished with their visit with Santa and their pine cones we walked down to them.


The Zoo has special winter rates that included the Rain Forest where they had an area set up with cookies, frosting, and sprinkles for the kids. Here's Jeremy about to take his first bite of his Christmas tree cookie.

We had more fun today, too, but that story and corresponding pictures will have to be told later as the pictures haven't been through Photo Shop yet.

We had lots of fun today Weights, Brimhalls, and Monsons!