In all of the busyness and mayhem, I somehow managed to post an incomplete 7th birthday post to Nathan a couple of days early. I hope to have the time to sit down and really think more about what I'd like to write to him on his 7th birthday. When I'm this tired, the words don't come easily and I can't express what I'm really feeling.
Just a couple of weeks ago, I was feeling like the summer was moving in slow motion, but now I realize just why I was so conflicted about wishing away those lazy days. When things pick up again there is no moderate speed or cruise control. Warp speed all day.
This weekend will be full of celebrating our little boy and saying "au revoir" to more good friends. Next week will feel like a break after this one, but then that's it. Today I got the school calendar in the mail, a Cub Scout schedule and a Sunday School teaching schedule by e-mail. I sat down filling in my calendar and looking at all of the upcoming meetings where moms are all asked to volunteer for just "one more thing" and somehow end up committing to way more than we ever intended, and I started feeling a little bit nervous about putting too much on our plate this year. I know. "Just Say No", you're thinking. I know.
Today as we drove to VBS, singing and dancing (as best you can while driving and/or wearing seat belts), Hannah asked me if I remembered the drive thru zoo we visited in England. Of course, I do, and I also remember that I never got around to posting about that one in my attempt to document our journey through Ireland and England. That isn't all I've left out, (As I'm typing this, I'm hearing my voice with a slight British accent in my head. We have all felt a bit like we are in British immersion camp this week as many of the VBS participants are from the UK. Amazing that we struggle to understand each other when we speak the same language. My partners in the preschool program have struggled just as much to understand me as I have to understand them. I find myself using words and phrases I've never used before like "put the rubbish in the bin" and "we'll go there directly". I seriously had the to-may-toe/to-mah-toe conversation with a mom yesterday when he daughter ate what I called a to-may-toe for a snack and she said "Oh? She just ate the one to-mah-toe?") I digress...
Back to the drive thru zoo. I did leave out several parts of our spring break trip and I really want to get some of those memories down before they are forgotten, even by my kids with way better memories than mine.
As Hannah (I just heard "Hannar" in my head...seriously, I need to watch some American television so that I can remember what my accent is supposed to sound like!) reminded me today, we saw some really amazing things at this safari zoo...
This sign greeted us upon entering. It is hard to tell, but the hand sticking out of the window has blood dripping from it. That is all the warning you get. If you are ridiculous enough to roll your window down and try to pet a lion, tiger or bear, you might leave with a bleeding hand. I like this no nonsense signage.
There was another sign warning us that the bears often break "wing mirrors" (rear view mirrors should you be an American--I had no idea how different our languages really are from one another!) off of cars. That's it. No apologies. If you don't want your mirrors broken off, don't come here.
One more sign with a banana crossed out indicating it was not possible to feed the monkeys as they hopped around on top of the cars. Our friends (who had been there several times) told us that they had seen people hide bananas in rooftop carriers to lure the monkeys to them and one guy they knew was teasing a monkey with a banana on the inside of a closed window. That guy had his antenna promptly broken off by one angry monkey. There was no sign about what the monkeys might do, but it was clear we were not to feed them. Our kids decided to find a way around this rule...Nathan drew a picture of a banana and taped it on the back window of our car. Hannah found that "quite clever". She actually used that phrase at the time...she has been in British immersion camp much longer than we have. At first they were disappointed that our car and its personally drawn banana did not attract monkeys, but they did enjoy watching this guy on top of our friends' minivan.
Here he is jumping down from their van. Now he didn't come to our car "directly", but he did come to ours next. Obviously, we don't have pictures of that (we did know he was there because we saw him jump up), but I wish I had a video of the faces of a certain driver and smaller passenger when he suddenly slid down the driver's side window in a less than exemplary dismount. There might have been some screaming from the driver which might have caused even more screaming and some crying from the smaller passengers.
And here is the pride of lions. They were about this exciting for us from our vantage point the entire time. Our friends were ahead of us and they saw a male lion approach a car rather aggressively which was way more entertaining. We heard all about it over the walkie talkie, but not the same. Maybe they have a video? We have brief ones of the lions doing exactly what they are doing here. The videos were interrupted by some passengers' disagreement with the driver's decision to break all of the rules and roll down the window for a closer look. Some people! Based on that reaction when these lions were just lying there completely disinterested in all things human, it is probably best that we did not catch the more "entertaining" lion.
Near the end of our drive, we were held up by a minor road block. A family of giraffes decided to cross the road just as we got to this point. The kids were SO excited. Imagine if we had been in one of the cars across the way?
The drive thru zoo was packed because it was a holiday and we did sit for quite some time waiting as people watched animals very carefully to see if they might do something interesting, completely ignoring the periodic automated voice reminder to "keep moving". We understood better after we had the chance to see this tiger drinking water right outside our window. We didn't "keep moving" either.
After we finished the drive thru part, we moved on to the most amazing indoor playground with huge slides. No pictures of that fun. We left the cameras in the car and joined the kids. Those slides really were fun and all 3 of them were serious about making the most of their time playing there. This place is seriously one of my favorite places we've visited. I can see why our friends had been multiple times even with the drive of at least an hour from their house (and it is NOT cheap). I'd go back again if they were still living there (sniff, sniff) or if we had intentions of going back to England again while living here...but there's a lot of Europe left to see and without super fun friends who we really, really miss, why go back? JUST KIDDING about the why go back part, but we do miss our friends soooo much.
Now, I must finish up and go to bed because as I mentioned, there is one more day of VBS, or "Rockodile Dock" as Sarah says. Thankfully, the temperature should drop from a sweltering, steamy 34 C today to something like 22 C tomorrow. Much better for those of us who are not cold blooded like our friend Jaque le Croq...have I mentioned before that I miss central a/c? I thought I might have.
The video is after the aforementioned dismount of the monkey from our car. We waited until Sarah (and others) had calmed down and dried her tears (note she is still holding a tissue) and took a little footage of her saying "bye bye" to our monkey friend. There are more videos of the actual animals as we drove thru, but the pictures turned out much better and as I said, some of the videos were interrupted by protests from certain passengers about rule breaking and others were interrupted by threats from a certain driver to certain passengers who might have been fighting over the one guidebook we had. We'll spare you.
I'm still going through the pictures from our recent travels with Memaw, Aunt Deedee and the boys and hopefully next week will have some time to post those. 7 year old's Star Wars birthday parties and preschool VBS programs can be quite demanding. Although, my part in the birthday party preparations has mostly been nagging my husband at this point. He has just placed cardboard cutouts of General Grievous and Darth Vader in front of me as I type this. He's been working hard as I've been relaxing with the blog. Tomorrow my work begins in the kitchen. Oh how I miss Sam's bakery. (I'm sure my husband is missing whatever store sells giant cardboard cutouts of Star War's characters--such a good dad). Even if I have to postpone the recent travels post for a bit, I'll be sure to post pictures of "Star Wars Party--Episode VII". Hmmm...postpone a post. Does that count as a pun? Now I know I've stayed up too late. GOOD NIGHT!
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