The zoo!

Hello all...It's just after 10PM here on the west coast of Florida, and I'd like to share the day that I had with Statina, Rachel, and Dawn, and their kids...

First off, it was a great day! We had lots of fun. There's a zoo here called Lowry Park (it's more than just a zoo, BTW), and the usual admission is about $18 or so, but today they had a special admission for $5! Statina I think originally posted something about this, and I jumped on board!

My DS and I met the others in the parking lot, and we were pretty darn close to first in line. We met at about 9:15 or so, as the park opened at 9:30. It was a very overcast and muggy day to start...but soon after we got going inside, it cleared up some, and the humidity abated a bit.

The park is organized according to continent, and the way we ended up going took us to Australia. It sprinkled off and on for the first hour or so. We saw horses in their stable as they were being prepared for the pony rides that the kids went on (except for my son, since I don't think he could have handled the horse by himself), and kangaroos and wallabies, and a not much else in that section. David and I went to go play in one of the play areas that the park has, going down the slide, over and over, until the girls were done with the ponies. Statina got a drink, which was then shared by all 4 children. The kids got along so well!

After Australia, we went to Africa. We saw elephants, and giraffes...the girls fed the giraffes with special cracker-biscuits that you buy, and I just went along for the ride. Eliana (I'm not sure of the spelling -- one of the little girls, Kayla and Avalyn were the other two) was afraid of feeding the giraffe, so I picked her up and and she told me she was scared, but I took her hand and made her give the giraffe the cracker, which the giraffe just stuck out its tongue and got it from her. When she realized it happened, her face just lit up! I made her count her fingers, too, just as a fun way of pointing out (emphasizing) that she was okay. And my DS didn't get jealous, either!

We also did a camel ride. It was nice to be able to take each other's pictures, because you do it in pairs: each parent with kid. David said the camel was bumpy. He was afraid at first, but then thought it was cool.

We did some other just walking around, looking at animals, talking a bit...it was nice. Then we went to lunch. David told everyone that Daddy is very hungry! After a long line for lunch, we all got really lucky when two different sets of people left who just happened to be sitting next to each other...so the 8 of us got to sit together and eat. Whew! And it was inside, which was air conditioned, since it was still a very muggy day.

After lunch we went to the fountains...it's a big circle where water squirts up from little fountains, and the kids play and get wet. The girls (and their moms) were prepared for this, and I, of course, was not! But it was still fun to get wet, and not worry too much about it. David wanted to go see the kangaroos again, so we went to do that while the girls played in the water, and the moms all watched.

Rachel and Dawn left a little while after that, and I decided to stay with Statina, partly to keep her company (she was going to be there another couple of hours), and partly to finish exploring the park. David kept saying he wanted to go see the frogs...I haven't the foggiest notion of how he knew there was a place to go see frogs, but we went to go find the frogs, which, of course, were as far away from the starting point as we could get. Along the way we saw a komodo dragon (aka, GIANT WISSARD! -- in David-speak), and saw the Lorikeets (birds -- but very colorful!), and the orangutans (one of whom was a baby), and monkeys, and rhinos, and white tigers (who were sleeping). Somewhere along the line, David began to get tired, because he'd find a good spot, and lay all the way down...but when I would ask if he was sleepy, he'd say NO! and get up. We finally got close to the frogs, and looked at the frogs...

And then it was time to turn around and get back to the entrance so Statina's mom could pick her up for the drive home. Within 5 minutes of me putting my DS in my car, he was out!

I had a great day, and I'm thankful that I had a lot of fun with everyone that I went with. :-)

I took a nap, too, after we got home. I was tired, too. I then took a shower to rinse the day off me, and help settle my headache, which I had for a good part of the day. David slept until about 6:00 or so, about two hours, and then later we went to my mom's to get his blanket, and the food she made for me the other night...

It was so nice to have reasonable, rational, easy to get along with people to go and do something with. Quite a contrast to Amanda, who is not easy going.