Saturday at Busch Gardens

This past Saturday the girls and I spent the day at Busch Gardens. A friend had given us passes a while back and we finally had a chance to use them. We really had a nice day. It was pretty crowded, but the weather was overcast so it wasn't too hot. And most of the people there are wanting to ride the "grown-up" rides, so we were not really in the middle of the worst of the crowds. There is a new section that just opened this past year called Jungala, and there is a very large play area for the kids. There are lots of climbing areas and there are animals on exhibit on different levels of the structure (there are stairs for the adults to use, thank goodness). That was the main area the girls wanted to stay in, and since it was just us, I let them do pretty much what they wanted for the day. And as you can see, they wanted to get their faces painted. Amelia chose the unicorn, and Hannah chose a peacock. The good thing about the paint is that is washes right off. The bad thing about it is that it washes right off. They really wanted to keep it on their faces, but they had to have a bath Saturday night so they had to wash it all off. But they looked beautiful in their "masks" while they lasted. Now they are trying to talk me into going to Disney next Saturday. I just don't think I am ready for that so soon after Busch Gardens. Next week is spring break for my kids, so I think we are going to visit some family we have not seen in a while. If I remember the camera, maybe I will have pictures to post from the trip.

Turn up your volume:)

I don't have any pictures of the girls at the zoo today, but I do have a few pictures of the animals to share. There are a couple of Hadiah, the 3 year old orangutan that is having a tantrum in the piture i posted last week. She is such a funny little girl. I am also including one of her and her little sister (same dad, different moms) RanDee. Hadiah loves to spend time with RanDee, and DeeDee is nice enough to let Hadiah play with RanDee as long as she plays nice. If she gets too rough or obnoxious, DeeDee will smack Hadiah and shoo her away. And this happens at least once or twice a day, because Hadiah can only not be obnoxious for short periods of time.

I am also including a picture of one of our newest residents, Sid, the bush baby. Don't let the picture fool you, tho. He is vicious!!! He only weighs a couple of pounds, but he is not afraid to take us on. We have to lock him in his nest box just to go into the exhibit to clean up and feed him. If he were any bigger, he would REALLY be scary.

Enjoying Our Weekend

This is the first weekend in quite a while that we have not had anything planned and nowhere we had to go. We usually spend our Saturdays getting packed and driving to Orlando so the girls can spend Sunday with their Grandparents. Since Steve and I both work on Sunday's, we have to have someone to watch the girls, and his mom and her husband are kind enough to do that for us each week. And as much as I appreciate them, and I really do, I don't like having to make the road trip every weekend. And the girls complain about not ever having a weekend "off" where they have all day Saturday to play. So this weekend I took Sunday off with plans to drive to Tracy's for the weekend to visit with our cousin. But plans changed at the last minute and so I decided to just stay home and have some quality time with the girls. We have had fun so far. Hannah and I stayed up really late last night. I was showing her old videos from the 80's on the Vh1 Classic videos web site. I would find one of the bands I used to like and show it to her and tell her which of the singers I always thought was cute. Well, lets just say, she apparently has NO taste in men whatsoever!! Once I realized that she just does not appreciate the finer things in life, we went to bed. We slept late today, of course, and then got up and went to the zoo for the day. We have lots of babies in the primate department right now and the girls have not had a chance to see them yet. So we visited with the new ring-tailed lemur babies and the girls fed the lemurs gummy worms. I don't know who enjoyed this treat more, the girls or the lemurs. Then we visited all the other babies, rode a few rides, argued about what to do and not do, got mad, got glad again, and all in all had a pretty good time. They rode the camel, but I decided to sit that one out. It is a good thing we get to do these things for free, cuz otherwise we would not be able to afford a trip to the zoo!! Can't believe how much everything costs.
Tomorrow we plan on taking it even easier and not leaving the house except to go to the pool (if the weather is nice). I hope to have a bit of time to work in the yard as well. One could really get used to having the whole weekend off pretty quickly, I think. One day when I grow up I will get a real job that works Mon-Fri. But for now, I will just enjoy what I do and the time I get to spend with my girls.