Events of the week

The week is almost over. I can’t believe it. We visited Charlotte’s Nature Museum, a Vietnam War Memorial Wall, and North Carolina Zoological Park.
The nature museum was fun for the kids, lots of exhibits, tons of hands on things. My favorite moment was when a butterfly landed on Jennifer’s stomach. She is pregnant and it was like the butterfly wanted to be close to her baby. She couldn’t get it to fly off her. An employee had to take it off her. The memorial wall was more for us adults. I have never been to a memorial like this before. (Actually I guess I did in Hawaii at the Pearl Harbor Memorial, but that was on a different scale) There was something reverent about touching the men’s names who have given their lives for our country. If I was a poet I might be able to express the emotion but…
The zoo was great. We meet with Melissa and kids (Gentry’s cousin). Fun that the kids all ready knew each other so no strangeness between them. It was such a hot day so we had to buy ice cream for $3 each and cool off by the fans but totally worth the hour and a half drive. I liked the laid out of the zoo. It seemed like the animals were living in more natural surroundings.


It's been a great week. I hope your was just as fun. Oh and in case you missed it, the picture of Tate being a bug... yes he had peed his pants.

Lazy 5 Ranch

Sunday Landon's family, our family, with Kevin and Robin all went to the Lazy 5 Ranch. It is a safari drive through park where we viewed over 750 animals from all over the world. I'm not really sure what the name implies, but I really enjoyed sitting back in the car taking pictures of the kids, looking at animals. We opened up the van's side doors and watched the animals up close and even a bit too personal. Animals that really left an impression on the kids were the emus. Emus are the second-largest extant birds in the world and can reach (6.5 ft) in height. They have brown soft-feathers and Tate nicknamed them birdie-velociraptors because of how they moved very quickly and the way they came in for their food. It made me a bit nervous.

In this picture Peach seems to be imitating the water buffalo, but she was just yawning (good timing on the picture Gentry)

I love this picture of Tate just hanging out the car looking at the animals. I am surprised the giraffes aren't over weight because they were feed so much food from all the visitors. This summer I could really take on the trait of a giraffe in that it has one of the shortest sleep requirements of any mammal, which is between 10 minutes and two hours in a 24-hour period, averaging 1.9 hours per day. I am barely getting more than that, but I need SO much more, try 8-10 hours a day.

My favorite animal was the Bison. I have been to Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump in Canada numerous times and driven through the buffalo reserve. But I have never had an experience like this where I was sitting in the seat next to the open side door of the van when a bison/buffalo came up to us and started eating from our bucket of food. He/she let me pet him and wasn't easily spooked. I am not sure how this park makes it all work because the adult bulls can express a high degree of dominance competitiveness during mating season, fighting for the female bison. Lots of times these fights result in injury or death. And with animals that can grow to be 11.5 feet in length, up to 6.5 feet in height and up to one ton in weight that seems like a scary time to be sitting there with the door open.