Let's Celebrate with a Visit to the ZOO!

Today marks a good day for our family. We made it through eighteen long months of monthly trips to Indy for Cary's jury duty. I say 'we' even though 'we' didn't have jury duty...Cary was the lucky, lucky guy, but McKinley and I sure had some adventures too...good and bad!

We celebrated the occasion by heading to the zoo when Cary's final session ended VERY, VERY early.

It was a beautiful day! Warm, sunny and still very summery...perfect zoo weather! This time we had a chance to visit exhibits we had not previously made, like the under-water dolphin watching dome (kinda freaky...in a good way), and we also made it to our favorites like the splash park, the train and the carousel. McKinley was especially taken by the Seals and Sea Lions...we think those and the elephants are SERIOUSLY his favorites. We saw a donkey being trained, had a way-close encounter with some goats, and an even closer encounter with a very.big.cow. One of the weirdest things to see this time was the elderly man who was petting a shark (yes, PETTING a SHARK...that's one yours truly has yet to do, thank you very much...I'll pass - especially after seeing this) for the first time in his life. His granddaughter (my age-ish) was coaxing and coaching him through the process. And when he finally dunked his hand into the water, he thoroughly surprised - and frankly, scared the beegeezus out of - a passing shark when he mistakenly GRABBED for the shark's TAIL.

O.M.G. I almost peed my pants.

The little shark actually came OUT OF THE WATER, writhing to get away. Good LORD, let's not give the old guy a heart attack! My OWN heart was pounding like crazy! Whew. I was shaking, so I convinced my boys out of there.

Onto the seahorses! Those guys must procreate like bunnies...the entire middle tank of seahorses were ALL giving birth. Seriously. One would hunker down and pop a couple out (yes, I just said that...sorry, but they're in the water...the literally pop out), then lumber away to help the next one bring a few more into the world. It was surreal. I couldn't walk away. I even took video. Weird.

We had a wonderful day together, really got some quality family time - I LOVE IT!

Yay for the ZOO and yay for an awesome accomplishment of my husband's! We all learned a lot from this experience, and I can REALLY find my way around those one-way-streets of downtown Indy!

Lynn