We love our zoo!

This trip certainly seemed to be for the birds . . . .

 

There were a couple of good looking girls in the same area and you can see one of them in the background above.

 

This was another peacock.  Such beautiful feathers!  The bird below let me get that close to it (no telephoto lens).  It does not have an aviary but flies free.  However, I've seen it there many times, so it knows the zoo is a good home.

 

This crane got spooked by something and gave a really loud squawk that startled us!

 

There were a number of duck with their teenagers.

The girls wore their swim suits in hopes of playing in the water area, but it was closed due to an infestation of bees.  Water + heat, of course the bees like it!

 

And of course we always take a picture by the sculpture.  It's almost as good for watching growth as the marks on the back of the kitchen door.

Does your visiting teaching take place at the zoo?

Three busy moms + one Easter vacation + the end of the month = a visiting teaching trip to the zoo. 

Lisa and I are responsible to visit Amber at least once a month to make sure she is doing all right and to see if she needs help with anything. We typically also have a short Church-related message for her as well.

We had 8 of our combined 10 at-home children with us today, ranging in age from 1 to 10.

I had never seen this roll up door open so we could see into this part of the elephant area.  The very large bull elephant on the other side stayed right up next to the "training wall" and explored the back side of the lock plates with his trunk, put the nub of his tusk into one of the little openings, and look and looked at the people watching him.  He seemed as interested in us as we were in him.
                               
I look forward to summer visiting teaching when we typically have all the kids swimming in my pool, or visit a park, or do some other kind of activity together.  I hear about women visit teaching the same ladies for 25 years or more.  I'd sure love to grow old with these ladies. :-)

One of the ways I make myself happy

Liking or not liking where you live came up on an email list this morning.  Here is what I wrote:

Although I think some areas are a lot prettier than others, I figure I have to live where Bill's job is because he earns the vast majority of our income. Whether I initially like the place we live or not, I'm going to be there, so I find the positives about living in the area. Either that or be miserable, and I decided about 16 years ago I was going to be happy.

So Tucson?

I love the Mesquites, palms, citrus and the fact they are green all year 'round.
Saguaros are just such interesting, majestic things.
My favorite desert plant is the Ocotillo, which I never knew anything about before moving here.
I like having a classic "Arizona ranch" house because I've never seen them anywhere else I've lived.
I love the late fall, winter, and early spring because the weather is fantastic and I love never having to shovel snow.
I love that friends like to visit during those seasons and thus we get to see old friends (especially the one from Alberta, LOL).
I like living in a city of a million (including the surrounding area) because it means I can get nearly anything I need somewhere in the city.
I like living in a city with a big university (University of Arizona) because it brings lots of really smart people to the scientific and advanced programs, plus free student recitals, etc, Bill and I can take advantage of.
I like living in a huge ward where lots is happening.
I like having parks all over and outside the city.
I love having an airport only about 12 miles away right here in the city.
I like having a big Air Force base here because I like to see the jets flying over and to know we are important to our country's defense.
I like knowing we'll have a temple here, so close and convenient in just a few years.
I like having almost a surplus of excellent medical care available in the city.
I love Bill's good job.

See? There is so much I really like about living here. Did I "forget" to mention a few things? Of course. But I focus on the good stuff. Makes me happier that way.

[These are the girls at one of our favorite places to go in Tucson--the zoo.]

New Year's Day Outing

After doing a lot of home partying and snacking last night, we decided to get out of the house today.  We love the zoo, so we headed there.

 There was a docent leading a table full of children in making party hats from recycled supplies. 

Aren't my girls cute?

No Black Friday shopping for us!

We went to the zoo instead.  Of course, there were so many families there that it WAS a zoo!

School's out--a trip to the zoo

The girls are on Fall Break this week, so we went to the zoo and had a picnic today.

Although it is autumn here, it's almost 90 degrees today and that's cooled off from earlier this week. 

While we were watching the new baby zebra . . .

. . . we watched a robber squirrel.

It was in the tortoise area and it was stuffing greens into its mouth as fast as it could.  And it turned out to be a good idea!

The robber squirrel hid behind a branch and didn't come out again until the tortoise moved on.  It seemed to know it was a thief!

One of our favorite sections of the zoo is the elephant area.  We like it because there is a lovely habitat for the elephants as well as an education area the girls really like.  I watch the elephants, they play in the education area.

Our zoo had three baby boy births the last week of August.  The zebra was one, and this cute flamingo was another:

I never knew baby flamingos were gray.

 



I always like to take a few pictures of the girls so in a year or two or twenty I can marvel at their growth.  Here is Elizabeth on our favorite brass sculpture:

And Sophia . . .

. . . and all three girls.

At the egg:

And finally, my tiger girls:

Zoo!

 It's great to have an annual pass to the zoo.  Today we focused on the large animals and didn't worry about trying to see everything or even every area of the zoo.

The wonderful new elephant exhibit is a real hit with our family.  Just two of the five elephants were out where we could see them today.  They have the ability to take themselves off exhibit, so we didn't see the mother or the two babies.

This is a fundraiser mural.  I wish I had made a donation!

Funny

Kevin arrived yesterday on a standby flight. He came a day late, and had to wait for one extra plane in Salt Lake City, but it worked! I'm grateful to his friend who provided the ticket.

Today he popped out of his bedroom wearing this hilarious shirt:

One of his friends saw one online and decided to make up her own for him. Just in case you're not sure, there are TWO mistakes.

We went to the zoo today and made it home before the wind and rain started. Not a lot of rain, not a lot of wind, but still not something I wanted to be out in with the kiddos.

We might get snow tonight, the first since 2006.

Peacocks, girls, and polar bears

Today was the first full week of Christmas vacation and I thought there was a little too much computer/television going on so I told everyone to get dressed and we'd go to the zoo. There were lots of decorations there, many of them "Sponsored by Girl Scout Troop XXX," etc. Here are my girls:

Our zoo has a number of peacocks running around the giraffe and savannah areas, including this beautiful albino peacock:

Kind of a contrast, huh?

The female lion was very interested in the girls. Of course there was glass there, but they were only about three feet apart:

Next is the polar bear part. No, not the polar bears at the zoo, the polar bears in my back yard! Dh said he is going to swim all twelve months this year and since the water is darned cold (that's 59F (15C)on my instant-read thermometer stuck into the pool water which doesn't sound that cold, but it IS), I told him he ought to wait until Kevin got here so they could egg each other on.

In this picture you can see the bare tree behind Kevin. He was getting ready to dive in.

Here he was already out and dh was screwing up his courage to jump in:

Does he look cold or what?

Kevin did a great dive here although it certainly looks like he was headed for a belly flop:

And the final glory shot (look at those rosy faces!):

As long as dh doesn't expect ME to go in with him in January, we are in good shape. :-)

House hunting

The girls had a week of spring break last week so we took a trip to dh's new city to check it out and look around for a house to buy/rent/etc. If you want to know where we are going, email me or leave a note here and if I know you and you aren't AEM, I'll send you an email.

Anyway, the new city is huge compared to our current village. There is lots to choose from when it comes to housing, but we have the proverbial problem of having champagne tastes on a beer budget. We want the best public schools for our daughters, but those schools tend to be in the expensive areas, and our budget is only average. We put in a couple offers to no avail. When I left on Saturday afternoon there was nothing in the works. However, over Sunday dh was busy online and the real estate agent pulled up a few things Monday.

Dh went to look at some places tonight and one of them is very workable so he was going to call the agent as soon as we got off the phone together to have her make the offer tomorrow morning. He left her with signed papers so all she has to do is write in the amount and present it. This place is "Santa Fe" in the extreme, with some . . . "interesting" paint choices. It would need lots of paint everywhere and new floor coverings upstairs and the removal of a bit of the Santa Fe kitsch, but it could work. That's all I'm going to say or think about it though, because I don't want to get attached to it quite yet.

We joined the zoo while we were there. Fifty dollars gets us in for a year, plus gets us in or at least a discount at lots of other zoos, should we happen to do any traveling. We went twice during the time we were there. I thought the girls would be bored going twice in three days but we actually spent more time the second time we went. It's a nice, smaller zoo. Very clean, too.

I believe our moving date will be sometime in June. A lot has to happen between now and then, but I'm looking forward to our next adventure.