Back at Preschool

Jude has been asking every morning for the past couple of weeks "is today a school day?". He loves school and has been really looking forward to going back to school, so last Thursday was the first day as he is so excited he could hardly wait. You wouldn't be able to tell from his picture, but he was more annoyed that I wanted to get his picture before he went inside that he gave me a sympathy grimace. Maile is at school with Jude now too, so I took her picture too. A couple of weeks ago Jude and I were at Target getting some things and they had the cutest top and flared pink pants for Maile, so we bought them and gave them to her and told her they were school clothes, so she is wearing them for the first day of school. Summer told me the other day that Maile was very upset the second day of school that her "school clothes from Aunt Tome and Juders" were not clean, so Summer had to explain to her that she can't wear them everyday to school, she needed to wear some other fun things too, so she was good with that. Maile has always loved to pick out her own clothes and was doing it well before Jude was. I remember Maile coming over to my office in great outfits when she was just around 2 years old. She especially loves to dress up and wore her butterfly outfit a couple of times and sometimes she comes in "daisy dukes", sweaters and rain boots. It's great to see the difference between boys and girls!

Wildlife Safari

For labor day we took Jude to Wildlife Safari in Winston. If you haven't been there I highly recommend it! It is a tad expensive, but it's a great once a year or two place to go with the kids. You can drive thru twice in the same day, and the last couple of times that we have been there we have, because sometimes the animals all asleep and other times they are up and exploring. The pictures are not zoomed in, so you can see just how close some of the animals are. Jude was not very keen at stopping at the RhinO-ocerus, because he had a Huge horn and he kept telling Gordon to roll the windows up and keep driving. He also asked if the car could outrun him if he got up. He was a bit concerned as the Rhino kept lifted up on his front legs. I don't think that I would want to find out if we could out run him, he would do some serious damage!

This giraffe was up on the hill above the driver side of the car and I couldn't see it since the Magnum has such a low roof, but Gordon took this picture and it took me a little while to find the giraffe among the trees.

The brown bears were actually awake and playing in the pond. You have to roll your windows up in the bear section, but Jude was pretty happy about that since they were so close and active. They had a big fish that they were eating and splashing at each other with. I didn't realize how big brown bears were, but compared to the black bears that we have in the "wild" around here they are at least twice as big. I believe Grizzly bears are even bigger, but I could be mistaken. I would not want to meet any of them in person!

Jude pet a ferret and it took some coaxing, but he said it was soft. Then we walked around "the village" and looked at the other animals including porcupines, snakes (gross!), goats, flamingos, etc. Back in the back in the petting farm part they have a display cow that has udders that you can try your hands at milking. We are definitely not farmers, that's for sure!