Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My

This week Dave was on vacation, and as he has pointed out to me, he was not going to sit around all day when he could be out doing fun stuff.  This would account for why I haven't posted in a while.  When he is at work, I am at work, and since I never talk about my work on my blog, I haven't really had much to blog about.  Since he has been home I have not had any time. 

On Monday we went to the Cleveland Zoo.  Their big new attraction is the Elephant Crossing.  For the past several years our elephants have been in Columbus while they built them a new habitat.  It was a very small area and kind of pathetic.  Now it is really amazing.  It seems like they are really close, and in one area you can feed them through a tube.  Ryan had a meltdown because I didn't let him put the quarter in the machine.  Yet one more reason why I am a mean mom and I don't let the kids do anything.  From there we proceeded to ride the train around the Australian Outback and ride a camel.  Yes, you read that right, the mean mom that doesn't allow her kids to do anything, not only let them ride a camel, BUT DAVE AND I RODE IT TOO!

From there we went into the Rain Forest where the humid 80 degrees felt like air conditioning.  This is Colin's favorite part of the zoo, and I was actively trying to talk him out of it.  It was in the opposite direction and I was trying to get to the African Safari to see the giraffes.  As it turns out, the Rain Forest was my favorite part.  They had a baby orangutan that was so animated we watched for about 20 minutes.  He was sitting on his mom's lap and then would antagonize one of the others to get a reaction.  In short, he was acting like a toddler.  As soon as the situation got under control he would start up again.  It sounds like Colin and Ryan at any given time, but it seemed funny when I was not the one that had to break it up. 

We walked for what the boys seemed to think was forever and got to see the rest of the animals.  It was a really hot day and they held up well under the circumstances. As we were driving home and laughing about the orangutans again I realized, this is what the American Dream is all about.  These are the days I should cherish.  It really doesn't get any better than this.