Moving On

I’m not sure how I found out about library passes, but I’m sure glad I did because we used one to get into the Beardsley Zoo for free yesterday. Since you have to reserve the pass and then pick it up the day before you go and because D took the day off, the date we were going was pretty much set in stone, unless we just cancelled the entire trip. I say that because it was one of those hot, hot days that should be spent in or by the pool, but we went early enough and left early enough that the heat wasn’t a big issue for us. I even packed a spray bottle at Mom’s suggestion to cool us down throughout our adventure. It worked quite nicely!

The zoo itself was perfect for doing in the three hours we were there. It was hot, so a lot of the animals were just lying in the shade (can’t blame them), but they had roaming peacocks and chickens that fascinated M. And he was able to feed the goats. If that was all that the zoo entailed, he would have left a happy little boy. He could name just about every animal we saw, even the vulture, to D’s surprise. The number of animal books we read in any given week should qualify him as an expert in the field. We meandered our way around the zoo at a good pace, ate lunch, and left so we could get home for M’s naptime : ). Since the ride was just about an hour long, I borrowed two zoo/animal DVDs and a few zoo books from the library and he was fascinated by all. One of the DVDs was by Brainy Baby, not to be confused with Baby Einstein or baby genius or however how many other companies trying to get in on the act, but I was totally impressed by Brainy Baby and checked more of them out of the library to review.

We made it home for M’s nap, which ended up being over three hours, and since it was technically a vacation day, D said we could go to my favorite pizza restaurant in CT (Naples) for dinner. That made Mama and Baby…and Micah…three very happy people. And D is never disappointed with food, so he enjoyed himself very much, too. To round out our perfectly enjoyable day, we went to Mom and Dad’s for a swim and some watermelon before heading home. My grandma from Florida is visiting, so M had lots of fun following her around and Grams had lots of fun going on and on about his “curls like Donald.” When we left, M kept saying, “Nana, Nana, Nana…” Good thing she’ll be here for a while!

I have a few more outings planned for us this summer and it would be fun to get to do them all, but with this heat and with my growing-by-the-minute belly, I’m not sure what we’ll end up doing. There’s a petting farm nearby that I have a coupon to, I’d like to pick-your-own fruit at a local farm, go to the man made lake we went to as kids, and definitely a day (or afternoon/evening) at the beach. We’ve already been to a few libraries and parks and I’m sure that’ll keep up as the summer wears on because we both enjoy those outings. M is just as content to stay home and play with his toys or visit Grammy and Grpa and BreaBrea, it’s me that likes being out and about and I’m trying to get it all in before I’m housebound for at least six weeks with Baby (who is still quite active with boney heels and elbows and fists!).

Speaking of out and about, we were at a local library today that offers a summer reading program for which I signed M up and his first prize for reading twenty minutes for 10 days was a very nice goody bag filled with coupons to local restaurants for free kids’ meals and free tickets to sports events. It was crazy! The program is neat, though, in that you log your minutes online and you can even enter the book’s ISBN number and it’ll list all the books you’ve read. We snuggle and read for twenty minutes in our bed as soon as M gets up, so it’s only ten more days until prize #2 (which is a free book or two, I think)!

I'm completely into another book (Stones into Schools, a follow up to Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson), so if you don't hear from me for a bit, that's what I'm doing!