Last week we enjoyed more summer while our public school friends and family returned to school throughout the course of the week. It was a sad reminder to us that summer is coming to an end, but we are making the best of the last weeks until we start after Labor Day.
Monday morning, we practiced with the chickens and turkey, as has become our usual. The girls are doing really well, the birds are very accustomed to the kids now and a rhythm has been formed as the fair draws ever closer.
Tuesday, we had our final pool party picnic at Aunt Nancy's pool before school resumed for everyone else, and it was a great day full of cousins! Aubrey, Wesley, Payten, Bristol, Landon and even Jamesen joined in. There was swimming, lots of food some baseball, and a water balloon fight too!
Friday night we were treated to an impromptu show in the front yard, compliments of the kids.
Saturday morning, the kids and I got up early and made our way to Binder Park Zoo in Battle Creek, where we met up with my cousin Emily and her three kiddos, Sofia, Levi and Tori. For the morning, we explored the zoo together while waited for another cousin and her kids to meet up with us later.
It quickly became a fun game to take a photo at each butterfly bench they found (there are dozens of them), and then it became a game to take a different kind of picture at each bench, and this had us occupied and entertained the whole morning as we wandered through half of the zoo.
We got to see the snow leopard...
a few bears...
a couple of lynx in motion, and even calling!
We found lots of benches...
We were entertained by a lemur playing air guitar,
And found more benches...
Then we entered the Zoorasic portion of the zoo, with models of dinosaurs all around, and it was scary!
Not really... it was so much fun hanging with the raptors and finding funny ways to take pictures with them!
We also watched the train go by
And found even more benches...
and a giant prehistoric snake!
Then we returned to hang with the raptors a little longer.
Another bench and we were back into the zoo again.
We found owls and red pandas, but very were sad that the prairie dogs and peacocks were no longer threre.
After a picnic lunch, we were joined by my cousin Jen and her kids Mason, Cooper and Mya. Once all together we headed to Africa via tram... but first another butterfly chair photo!
And then we crammed into the tram for our ride to Africa!
We saw all sorts of animals... ostrich, zebra, deer, a jaguar,
and of course, the giraffes, which we got to feed!
With the day quickly slipping away, we made our way through the African animals before making our way back to the tram where, once we returned to North America, we had to depart from our cousins for the long trip home in time to catch another train!
With Daddy picked up and the kids dropped off at Sandy Pines with Grandpa and Grandma for a few hours, Alex, Kathy and I made our way to Coopersville for the murder mystery train ride. It was a bit warm inside, but we had a great time and even solved the crime!
