This one's for you mom, (because the zoo makes for a really boring post since
everyone has already been there a gazillion times).
So it only took Mark and I four years to take Millie to the zoo (bad parents, yes, I know.) But making the trip felt much more worthwhile with two kids!
The baby elephant,
Zuri, was super cute! Even if I didn't get a great picture of her. When I was a kid I remember getting to ride on an elephant at
Hogle Zoo, now you're lucky if you get a good view of one (oh, how things have changed!) Also, I was disappointed that the zoo no longer has lions or hippos! What happened?
One fun story from the trip: Toward the end of our tour Mark and I wanted to take the girls on the train but for some reason thought you needed cash to get your tickets and we only had a credit card (I'm sure they would have taken it, but at the moment we were convinced otherwise). Then as we were about to leave, Millie remembers that she didn't get to see the zebras (because they weren't there when we passed by the first time.) So we headed all the way back to the zebras and the greatest thing happened on our way there. This man stopped us and asked if we wanted his train and
carousel tickets! He and his family had to leave and didn't have time to use the tickets. That totally made our day!
And to make the trip complete, we ate dinner at a restaurant afterward. We stopped at
Pepperbelly's in
Kaysville. (I love that place, and wish they still had one in Ephraim so we could eat there when we go down for visits.) The restaurant was celebrating its birthday and handed out free birthday cake (before dinner even arrived) so of course that's all the girls wanted to eat. Ivy especially enjoyed the cake and must have thought it was her birthday.
I survived my week as "teacher." But it seriously wiped me out! I learned a lot though, so hopefully it's easier next time around, which (fortunately) won't be until January. (One of the mother's is expecting twins in the spring and so she took my November week and I am teaching her week in March). I don't have pictures of the actual preschool class, as I was too stressed out to think of that. But the kids all had a good time learning about leaves and the letter L (on Tuesday), squirrels and the number zero (on Wednesday), and pumpkins and the letter P (on Thursday).
On pumpkin day, I used a pumpkin as a punch bowl at snack time. That night I had Mark carve it for our front porch. Millie has loving named our jack-o'-lantern Linda. So if you're in town, make sure to drive by our house between the hours of 7 and 10 p.m. to see Linda in action.
