A day at the ZOO!

Well our Monday trip to the zoo was postponed until yesterday. When I got off work, Jada Rose and I went up to Hogle Zoo for the afternoon! We had a great time. Jada was able to identify many of the animals such as "Seebra, Cammal, SSSSSSneeak, Minkey, Tiger" and a few others. We came upon a Cougar and she called it a "Cat". I decided I would correct her on this one and said to her "Actually Jada, that is a C O U G A R" I sounded it out slowly so she could repeat it. Immediately her eyes got big and she and she exclaimed "Pooooh-ger!" I high five'd her and said "Yes Jada, I stand corrected, hence forth and forever it shall be known as a Pooh-ger". Isnt it amazing how these humble un-tainted fresh minds continue to teach us! ;-)

Tomorrow Andrea and I are going on a vacation with my two sisters and their spouses. My wonderful 'foster-grandparents/parents' The Strands will be joining us as well. The Strands adopted my mother when she was a teenager and taught her to waterski, snowski, Scuba dive, hike, and most importantly LAUGH! We have begged them to join us on other trips in the past hoping that in some infantile way we could provide them with a fraction of the joy they have taught my parents and subsequently us by going on a vacation that we had for once planned. They are comming! So we are excited. We will be going to Honolulu for 3 days then to Kauai for a week. We all are divers (thanks to Dott and Randy Strand) and so we have several big dives planned, as well as some fun hikes and just lounging on the beach. Teya graduated from college and we are also celebrating that achievement as well. HOWEVER, we are SOOOOO anxious about missing our little "bugaboo" Jada Rose for 10 LOOOOONG days! It truly bums us out to not be able to squeeze her and read books to her for 10 DAYS! However we also know that if we took her she would have very little recollection of going there, and believe we have many many opportunities for her to enjoy the same things we do such as scuba dive and hike in the future. Besides, do you know how hard it would be to keep a watchful eye on Jada when her "Hottie" of a Mom is sunbathing in a two piece under that warm Hawaiian Sun? Jada will be spending most of the time with her Gramma Dawny, and a day or two with her Aunt Claire and Uncle Bob! So given both perspectives she will probably have more fun with her Aunts, Uncles, and Grandparents than we will!

Expect photos to be showing up both from Jada's experience over the next 10 days as well as ours. As always our thoughts and prayers continue to be with the Christensen's. For the record they were going to go with us as well... but life happens.