zoo and flight home

Finally I have a chance to collect my thoughts on our zoo trip and flight home...

Here is my summary picture for the zoo trip:


Easton is sucking his thumb and yes, he did "pet" the goat with both hands prior to this picture (ick). Oh well, what is a parent to do? It's not like we can take his thumb away!

Giraffe's are funny creatures. The most difficult part is explaining a giraffe to a child. They don't make any noises (that I know of) so when we run through our list of animals with the twins we have to improvise.

What's a monkey sound like? "Oooooh oh, ah ahhhhh"
What's a tiger sound like? "grrrrrrrr"
What's a giraffe sound like? ... uh. I mean what does a giraffe look like?

That's where Kendra has Easton and Layla stretch their neck out and stroke it while saying, "long neck".

So when we approached the giraffes Easton and Layla immediately said, "long neck" and did the motion on their neck. My sister was smart enough to buy giraffe food from the ticket lady as we entered the park. She's such a smart planner... I was surprised because I didn't know what giraffes eat or that they had special food. Anyway, we walked up to this platform overlooking the giraffe area and they came right up to us!


Easton and Layla were equally brave and intrigued by their gigantic heads and long, black tongues.


Nana was such a trooper to march through the zoo with us and hold up kids to interact with animals. Here is Daphne getting a close encounter with long, black tongue.


I was paranoid about the giraffe biting their hands, but he was very gentle. Until we ran out of food, that is... Then the giraffe started darting his head towards a little too aggressively so we promptly ended the giraffe petting portion of the tour.

Layla did a great imitation of the flamingo you can see in the background.


There were times when animals were visible only for humans over 3 feet tall so I did my best to lift them up as much as possible to keep them engaged.


And Papa had as much fun watching his grandkids soak in the sights as the grandkids did.


We went to the zoo during the middle of a gorgeous, partly cloudy school day. My sister home schools her three kids so they were able to join us for adventures all week long.


There is a big difference from looking at an elephant in a story book and standing 10 feet away from the real ones as they devour boxes of bananas.


I expect the "Three Billy Goats Gruff" book will be much more meaningful to Layla after having such interactive experiences like this. That's all from the zoo chronicles. Even though zoos are usually fairly equal (you've seen one tiger you've seen them all), but the animals on this trip were all actively playing and extremely close up where the kids could all experience the diversity of God's creation. Being there with my family made it extra special.

Here are two other pictures from our evening at my sister's house which I neglected to post. My sister is a great photographer and I gladly give her credit for these two. Do I really have THAT much grey hair? I guess pictures never lie, huh...


Kendra had an excellent time filling her role as "aunt" although now she feels like she's missing out after tasting what being an aunt is all about.


And now for my Way Back Whensday pictures... Here is me at age 2.


Sorry for the poor quality of the picture, but it is over 30 years old and my scanner stinks. And here is another picture of me at age 4. Yeah, I am Superman!


I see more and more resemblance between Easton and myself as he grows, but I hope he doesn't end up with the same goofy haircut as I had.

As for the WFMW (Works For Me Wednesday), I'll let you in what to do (and not to do) for flying on an airplane with twins. We took much of my sister's advice literally word-for-word and we succeeded for the most part. Our flight left at 9:30 PM and arrived back in Phoenix at 10:30 PM, which is really 12:30 AM according to central time. This caused some serious issues for us because Easton and Layla are in bed promptly at 7:00 PM every single night.

1. Lollipops DO work, but (holy cow) they are sooooo messy. Use at your own risk. TicTacs are equally useful and equally messy, as we found out the hard way.

2. NEITHER of our babies slept a single wink during the flight. Even after giving them children's Benadryl, wearing them out with activities all day, and staying up until 12:30 in the stinkin' morning, they were absolutely wired! Why, then, does Easton look like he just polished off a double shot of espresso and I look like a half-dead zombie?


Makes no sense whatsoever, but that's the way things worked out.

3. Thank GOD for the portable DVD player. I would gladly pay three times the retail price of a DVD player to entertain our kids with Mickey Mouse Clubhouse inflight. With almost an hour left in the flight Kendra and I noticed the "low battery" signal flashing on the DVD player. I almost broke down crying at the thought of dealing with our cranky-pants kids without that thing. Luckily the batteries held out long enough for the flight attendant to announce the descent. Layla's lollipop served its purpose of keeping her ears popping and not hurting. However, she gnawed on the thing so much that the dum-dum paper "stick" gave out before she finished the lollipop.


We had to throw away the shredded bits and depend on reading books again for the tenth time so they would stay still long enough to land. Another thing that went right for us is that even though it was an almost full flight, the lady next to us gladly moved to another seat on the plane, which gave us the full three seat row to store our stuff and give them a place to sit. I highly recommend kindly asking the person to go find another seat, if you have the guts to do it. That person will thank you and the extra space will be a blessing for you.

What will we do next time we fly since the twins will not be "lap children" (under 2 years old)? They will have their own purchased seat... Guess we'll find out how that works, but we don't plan to fly again for many, many months.

In closing, the trip to Missouri was wildly successful by any measure. The adventures were plenty and the quality time with my family was priceless. Even though Easton and Layla won't remember this trip as they get older, we have many pictures to show them of the awesome time spent with grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.

Now we are settling back into our routine and look forward to some uneventful days ahead this week (as if that's even possible).

See you soon!