Monday, February 4, 2013

New zoo

I wrote this post twice on my tablet, and it ate it twice. So I've been mad at it. Maybe my laptop will work better.

On our first Saturday in AZ, we went to a new zoo. Okay, it was new to the kids. I went there when I was a kid. I kind of expected the worst, because it was a post-lunch trip, which can and often does lead to melt-downs. But the kids dealt with everything pretty well. We played in the petting zoo while we waited for Nana and Jim to join us. There were signs everywhere to "beware the goats". We didn't have any problems with goats. We did have a deer try to eat Alex's hat and shirt though. We fed the animals and petted a llama or alpaca. Not sure which. It was very soft though. Then we had lunch at the bbq restaurant. It was right next to the aquarium, so one wall was a wall of glass with fish and sharks swimming around. That was pretty cool.
Since it was rather warm out, we decided to hit the aquarium part first. We went through all the fish buildings and the kids really liked it. Even Elizabeth was enthralled. My favorite were the little otters. They were tiny- like the size of squirrels. And they chirped. And they were very cute. 
We walked over to the giraffes and I took a break to feed and put to sleep a very tired cranky baby. The kids went up and fed the giraffes. Claire later told me that one was nice and one was mean. I'm not sure what she meant by that. We walked around and saw lots of the other animals. I didn't realize until we left but we totally missed the big cats- the lions and tigers. They have several tigers and at least one lion, and because it is a smaller zoo, they are closer. It is always the big attraction at this specific zoo. But kids were very tired and cranky, so we left.

We got to spend a lot of time with my sisters this trip. Teene took some time off work and we spent a day at our house and a day at her house. We went to a fun park. Amy works evenings so we saw her most mornings and hung out together when we could. Nana was working but we got to enjoy some time with her as well.

On Thursday evening, I took dinner over to the Woods' house. It was just Angelique and Veda, but it was really nice. I hadn't been able to get a hold of Veda, but we just took a chance and went over. It was a fun evening. We also got to spend most of sunday with them, but that wasn't nearly as much fun, just because Veda was getting ready to go out of town and there were other people around. But I did enjoy the time I had with her. 

Other fun happenings while we were gone: Elizabeth started to crawl. She's a regular mover now. She is still pretty choppy, so it's funny to watch her. She will look at where she wants to go, then look down and crawl, then look up and correct her course. 

Overall, we had a really fun trip. Towards the end, we were definitely ready to come home. I think this may have been the last really long trip. Alex was very homesick. Claire didn't really care, but Alex was a mess. Every time I said "let's go home" from somewhere, he would said "Our home? I want to go to our home." It was hard to explain that it was kind of my home because I lived there when I was younger. I enjoyed the time I had to spend with every body. It's hard to believe we haven't even been home a week yet. I feel like we've been home forever, but I do still have suitcases that are not unpacked and cleaning to catch up on. Surprisingly, the dogs don't stop making messes just because I am not home to clean them up. Amazing I know. Short hair is definitely on the list for our next dog. 

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