Zoo day

You guys, we are on day three of Croup-vasion. No leaving the house (except the urgent care visit Monday to see if maybe we could get some medicine to help Vivian continue breathing through the night since she struggled to do so during her nap that day), no adult interaction, watching my sanity slip through my drafty, drafty house.

Did I mention my house is cold?  Yes, I know, I live in Texas, how cold could it possibly be?  Cold!  Like in the 40s-50s during the day and 30s-40s at night!  My house is like an igloo!!!

I can hear you people in Illinois and farther up north laughing at me, but I can not help it, I have been Texas-ified.  I no longer can handle cold and it is embarrassing, but true.  When we travel up to Illinois next month, I'm pretty sure we're all going to lose fingers and toes to frostbite.

So, November was jam packed with activities and visitors.  If I had my act together, I would have given you a play-by-play quickly after it all happened, but I do not have my act together.  I often think about blogging, toy with ideas I want to chat your ears off about, and then get lost in a world of Peppa Pig, homeschooling, cooking meals for the people I am legally obligated to feed, and reading too much fb.

This month we ventured to the zoo.  I know you know my love of zoos is immense, and i am happy to say that I am properly schooling my children to love them as much as me.

I forgot the name of this guy, but he was uber cute and I wanted to pet him until Elisabeth read he was poisonous, so I just decided to take his picture instead. 

 Evan hates snakes, which I find so odd because I find them fascinating.

 How cute are these two?

 Julia is really taking off with her reading.  She read a lot of the captions about the animals and is trying to sound out long words. The other day she was reading what I was typing in a text and then I realized that maybe I should not write swear words down in her presence anymore...or put text standing up where she can't see what I'm typing.

 There was a brand new baby monkey!!!

 I kid you not, this tiny tree kangaroo was playing his tail like an air guitar right before I took this picture.  I was belly laughing and probably cause some people to wonder about my sanity, but come on--a kangaroo using his tail as a guitar?  Hilarious!

 In between these steps is water with no kind of net or anything:

 Vivian wanted to walk with the big girls on it and I called out, "OMG! How deep is that if she falls in???" Evan looked at me and said, "Maybe 2 inches." Oh.  I guess there is no need to fear the zoo would allow an area where people could fall in and drown.  Pretty sure Evan contemplated my intelligence and whether to continue our marriage after I yelled that out so loudly.

Well, my sick children are whining at me to pay attention to them and attend their needs. Guess I best go and parent them for a while. Thank the Lord that Evan comes home early today because I am scidaddiling out of here to do some last minute pre-Thanksgiving grocery shopping and time away from prison..er...home.

Rachel, Henry, Mabel, Peter

One of the hardest parts about being in the military is not seeing family on a regular basis. We are truly, truly blessed to have parents who try to visit us here in Texas a couple of times a year (each set!).  We always plan one trip to Illinois as well, to see extended family and friends and spend more time with our parents and Evan's sister and her family.

But, another hard part is not getting to see the friends who have become family, like our Colorado family. Last year, we made a trip to Colorado to see my beloved friends Kim and Rachel and their families.  This year, they are coming down here to visit.  First to visit was Rachel and her three kiddos.  They made the almost 14 hour trip in one day.  Of course, Elisabeth and Julia were besides themselves with excitement because they love Rachel's kids like siblings, but Vivian did not remember them.  It did not take her long to warm up to them, though.  :)

Rachel and her kids brought rain with them (thank the Lord!), so the first day was spend getting reacquainted, watching tv, and reading.

 I did buy pumpkins to paint as an activity in case they were bored, so we did that the first day. (I can't help it, my default mode is teacher.)

 Yes, that is my mother in these pictures!!  She arrived via airplane the same day as Rachel and the kids. My mom came to stay for almost a month because she loves us.  :)

 When you come to visit us in San Antonio, if you have not seen the Alamo, than we will take you.  It is right downtown and free. Also, we will take you to the Riverwalk to show you how completely unimpressive it is, and so you can tell everyone you saw the Riverwalk because EVERYONE says it is a "must see!".  We, personally, beg to differ, but to each his own.

 This is Peter, Rachel's youngest, and my Juju.  They love each other. They have very similar character traits and are so sweet together. Peter is a little over 4.5 years older than Julia, but that has never stopped them from getting along so well together.

 This is public art. Peter loves public art.

 These kids are so big I want to cry. Henry is 13 for goodness sakes!  Ugh.

  Vivian really loves rocks. I find them everywhere--in my house, my purse, our cars. This rock bed in the Alamo gardens was like a goldmine for her.

 Our stroller basket via Vivian:

 I told them to all sit up straight and smile or I wasn't going to feed them lunch.  :)

 So, our crosswalks in SA are blind people friendly and will talk to you after you push the button.  Mainly, they say "Wait. Wait. Wait." in the most obnoxious electronic voice.  Peter could not stop pushing the button because he thought the voice was hilarious.

 Since it Rachel, my book soul mate, I took her to the Landa Library (the most beautiful library!!) and Half Price books while they were here.  The amount of books we borrowed and bought were borderline obscene.  I terribly miss book shopping with her. These pictures are from the library's gardens and playgroud:

 Her face here cracks me up!:

 No trip to visit us is complete unless we take you to Ft Sam's Quadrangle!

 The ducks and geese were all out in parade mode.  Wherever we walked, they were waddling behind us trying to catch up.

 And then I look over, and Mabel is HOLDING A DUCK!:

 How crazy is that?  She just swooped him up and carried him around to show us!

 20 minutes later, Mabel picks up that same duck, again!!!!  What duck *wants* to be held?  Julia was excited and also jealous; she wanted to pick up a duck but was just too nervous to try.

 There are bird feeders all over the Quadrangle, but no one had any quarters.  Julia figured out, though, that if she just shook the whole machine hard enough, some of the pieces would come out.  She was becoming quite popular with the geese which both frightened and excited her.  Hey, geese are funny but kind of aggressively scary.

 On the way back home, Ebeth found a ginormous patch of stickerburrs!  Here is just one of her shoes:

 Her other shoe was also totally covered and her socks!  Peter had been following her, so he had them too.  It took us 15 minutes to get those all off. Ridiculous.

They were here for 5.5 days and it just wasn't enough. It'd been too long since we'd seen each other and saying good bye was so hard because we aren't sure when we'll see each other again. Our kids keeping growing (though we tell them to knock it off, dagnabit!) and once a year makes that reality even harder.

But, even if it is a whole other year, I am so very, very thankful for friendships that pick up right where they left off, technology that lets us "see" each other almost daily, and friends who become family.

Oh, and also wine.  Cause I forgot how great a glass of wine is when talking to Rachel well past bedtime.