Happy November!

Can you believe it? It's November already! I'm not sure how that happened so fast. Next thing you know, I'll turn around and November will be gone too. The months have just been flying by this year.

We started November off with a trip to the zoo.  The girls were so funny, each with their own map telling me which path to take.  I did find a path I'd never walked on before. Kiwi Trail is pretty much a free fall and very challenging to walk on the meandering steep slope with a stroller and kids.  The whole way down, I was thankful that I wasn't going the other direction!

The girls had fun and we saw some animals. When we go to the zoo I take it easy and we only see one part of the zoo.  If we wander all over the entire place, I get too tired. Plus, this way the zoo is different every time we go!  Today we saw the zookeeper let six macaws out of a cage and they flew across the zoo.  We got to see them take off and soar into the air, very pretty birds!

After the zoo, we went to Katie's new house.  It's pretty empty inside!  So far, she has one chair, an airbed, her guitar, and a saucepan.  That's pretty much all she owns. The little girls sure had fun running and screaming in the empty house. The moving truck should arrive with Katie's furniture and things in mid to late December. I told her to go to Ikea and SuperTarget in the meantime. 

From there, we went to a pizza place to eat.  We just tried to find anything and that's where we ended up. It turned out to be a sports place with tvs everywhere.  The whole place would burst out in cheers every now and again.  They were playing a baseball game on every tv, apparently the world series was going on?  eh, whatever it was, people sure got loud in short bursts. The pizza was fantastic! We ordered fried zucchini for an appetizer and then we had a tomato, spinach and goat cheese pizza.  It was delicious!  I sent the leftovers home with Katie since she didn't have any food at all.

We finally got home at 9pm.  Much later than I thought we would be out, but it was a fun day. We were all so tired from Halloween and then kicking off November with an outing was fun but exhausting.  Ok, for me it was exhausting! The girls weren't phased one bit, neither one of them slept through the night after all of that.

Victory over the Virus!

Gracie and Libby have kicked that nasty cold virus outa here! We are a much happier family now that the littles are back to themselves again.

To celebrate the little girls' return to good health, we decided to have an outing. After two solid weeks of nothing but germs, kleenex, doctors and medicine - we needed some fun! And some fresh air and sun too. So, we went to the zoo! Fuuuuuuuun!

Occasionally, I go to babygroup (breastfeeding support group where not all the moms breastfeed) and there are a few moms in that group who are close to my age. They all have baby boys and they are all first time moms, but that's ok, I forgive them for that because they are all 40ish. Its not often I hear of another mom my age, so to find a whole group of them is a gem! Anyway, these moms planned a zoo outing and I originally said I wouldn't be able to go since the girls were sick and I have homework for school, etc. I didn't want to commit.

What great timing! We needed a fun outing before I lost my mind, and the babygroup was heading to the zoo. Awesome! We loaded up the van and met them there.

It was a beautiful day and we sure had fun seeing the animals. You just can't go wrong with a trip to the zoo! Gracie had a blast and Libby was very attentive all day.

When I first suggested to Gracie that we get our shoes on and go to the zoo, she wanted nothing to do with the idea. No Zoo! Why not, Gracie? "Elephants. Ewww elephants. Elephants poop. Elephants are gwoss. ewww elephant poop" I promised we would look at pink birds and we didn't have to go see the elephants. Ok, she would go to the zoo for pink birds.

Sure enough, she really enjoyed the flamingos and paid no attention to the elephants. Her favorite animal this trip was the camel. Why? Because the camel farted. He really let one rip! It was loud and made his tail flap in the air, wow did that animal stink! Gracie just about laughed her head off! "Camel did a stink!" She gets her sense of humor from her daddy.

Here are a few photos:

Survival of the Fittest - at the Zoo

We spent the afternoon at the San Diego Zoo. It was great! One exhibit had some out of the ordinary excitement.

In the otter exhibit, Mother Nature paid a visit and reminded the crowd who is the boss. The otters share an exhibit with some little monkeys, I dunno what kind, crazy monkeys are all the same to me. Otters were in the water, monkeys in the trees. They are all just as adorable as can be.

A baby monkey fell from the tree and landed in amongst the otters. Two otters grabbed the cute little feller and tried to drown him. They were really going to kill that poor little baby monkey. Swayed by the cute little monkey's cries for help, a zoo visitor climbs over the railing and the glass half-wall and leaps in the otter water to save the baby monkey! This guy must think he's superman. The zoo officials have a different opinion.

So now there is a man in the water in the exhibit; baby monkey was rescued! Now the loud flailing man is suddenly confronted with a new situation.... oh yeah.... the monkeys are angry. They attacked him! The guy couldn't get out either.

Zookeepers start showing up. Tons of them. All of them with walkie-talkies and stern expressions. The crowd grew and people glued themselves to the railing. All eyes were on Psuedo-Superman, the otters, baby monkey and now the monkey grown ups.

I wonder if the baby was being a brat and the big monkeys pushed him in? Either way, the monkeys sure didn't like the rail jumper. Zookeepers rescued the man and took the baby monkey out too. Little monkey was hurt, not sure if the guy was hurt or not. I don't think the zoo keepers cared if he had any aches and pains.

We didn't get any pictures of the event of the day, we arrived just as the scuffle between man and beast ended and we were on the fringe of the crowd. I betcha it'll be on you tube tomorrow. There were a lot of cameras snapping away and camcorders recording these wild animals acting so... wild.

Zoo Photos

This is a winery on the way to the Wild Animal Park. I had to take a picture to prove to my sister that it did not burn down. She was very concerned about the vineyard!

This is the duck that was chased by my little princess until the duck decided, Enough! And he bit her. Quack! Quack!
Flamingos. So pretty! Why do they smell like monkey poo? Birds are her favorite, so we didn't even go near the monkeys. Only smelled like we did.
I thought this flower was very pretty! A puff of color!

Big Red MaCaw birds giving each other some love. We spent most of our time in the aviary looking at birds.
Gracie yelled "Quack!" to every bird in the aviary.

The deer got to hear, "Good dog, Sanny" and a nice pat on the back.