Zoo

Yesterday the boys and I went to the zoo. We have yearly passes so I thought it would be a good thing to do for the morning that wouldn't cost us anything since we already have passes. It was perfect weather for July...high of 68! Since we go to the zoo frequently, we have our usual routine that we follow. This time we changed it up a bit. When we first got in the zoo, we went to the nocturnal house. We saw a barn owl, an anteater, bats, flying fox, and other night animals. We like this house a lot! I think that was the new favorite spot for the boys. I liked the owl the best and the bats the least!!! We then went to the insect house which was another new spot for us. We spent a lot of time in there. E liked this room and was excited that he was able to final see what a scorpion looked like. For some reason he has been talking about scorpions for the past few weeks so it was nice to finally show him one in person. And yes all the insects were alive. We saw a Japanese horned beetle. This thing was HUGE...at least 3 inches long and about 1 1/2 inches wide with a big horny hook thing on its nose. After these two new stops for us, we saw the usual animals and had some lunch. We did see the African animals this time...we usually miss them for some reason...these are Mike's favorite. Another new stop for us was the children's zoo where the kids could play a little bit sit on statues of animals and pet big turtles that were walking around. After that we went to the petting zoo, where they feed the goats. This was a treat for the boys. They have never done that...J thought it was funny and E thought they were soft to touch. Mom asked me if L likes to see the animals, and I said "I don't know..actually most of the time I have the strollers pointed toward a wall or bush so he is out of the way." Poor guy!!!

Today I ran errands to get ready for L's birtday on Sunday. I had to buy him presents and get lots of groceries. We were out of almost everything. I ordered his cake and his personal "smash" cake. Once again it made me think of how quickly the year has gone by. Tonight when we put the boys to bed, Mike told them we would do fireworks tomorrow night. As he was leaving the room he said, "At least we know that mommy won't go into labor this year." That made me think that technically tonight a year ago was when we went to the hospital. I was reflecting on the fact that everything was in such perfect timing. God's timing. His hand was in all of it...down to what time arrived at the hospital. Had things been 10-15 minutes earlier or later, things could have been drastically different. Today I was thinking about how I felt when I came out of surgery. How scared I was and how releived Mike was. I remember he was just standing at the end of my bed telling me it's ok, you are ok, the baby is fine. Of course, he had already lived through the fear of me in surgery and L being born so early. But he had also seen L already and saw that he was breathing. He saw me in the hopsital bed alive and ok. It was all catching up to me at this point. I was scared before the surgery but more so when I woke up. Awww, the Lord is so awesome! He had me and L in His hands the whole time. He knew exactly what was going to happen. I remember right before I went under, I prayed, "HELP ME, LORD, I am scared." Boy did He answer my prayer!!!

Well, anyway on a lighter note, I will leave you with another one of E's quotes of the day. I was pushing him on the swing tonight telling him that he needed to adjust his attitude a bit because it was more pleasent to be around him when he was happier. He said, "I don't want you to send me away." I said, "I would never send you away." He said, "Yes you would like you said you are going to send Booker away." Booker is our dog who has had diarreha the last two days...which has left me cleaning it up 4 times. I told him that he is my son and Booker is just a dog. I would never send him away. It is amazing what goes through kid's heads!!