When Two Strings Come Together...: The animals of the zoo, carousel and barn and the best story of the trip

June 2018

When we all get together we have to plan a few outings so we don't go too crazy. One of our favorites it to go to the zoo and the carousel in Topeka, KS. It is such a big job to get lunches packed, diaper bags ready, kids ready and sunscreened up... Yikes. I miss the magic of childhood when the cooler was always magically full, the car always magically had gas, water bottles were all magically full... Haha! But I do love being the one who provides that magic now. And I definitely appreciate my mother more now than I ever did as a kid!

Walking into the zoo with family

This was a fun sign to see. When I was growing up, my siblings and I had a habit of saying "Cowabunga" at bedtime to our parents in the list of, "I love you! Sleep tight! Cowabunga!" So we had to take a picture. I think Camp Cowabunga is the perfect name for our kids' cousins camp in Kansas.

Cowabunga!

Lots of monkeying around happening at our house

My niece and Abigail found the stall in the women's bathroom that has a rocking chair instead of a toilet and they had to try it. The bathrooms were actually air conditioned and felt so nice compared to the hot, humid weather outside. They thoroughly enjoyed this brief respite. Haha! Incentive to breastfeed, dear children!

They have discovered the benefits of breast-feeding early

Dung beetles...

Hyrum liked the birds

Apparently my dad is a chick magnet... or at least a pirate?? One of those two...

The birds liked Granddad

A common zoo characteristic that I desperately hate (I've been to over ten zoos in my lifetime) is that they put their gift shop merchandise right in the doorways at kid level as if to say, "We don't really care about your parental peace, we'd actually like your child to scream and cry as you wrestle this stuffed animal away from them. Or buy it. That's always an option." I swear that's what they're thinking. Anyway, here is Audrianne learning the hard lessons of life.

Audrianne is learning that she can't have everything in life

The Topeka zoo has a secret tunnel! The kids loved this big tunnel that goes underground for a while. It's a little different - scarier - being the parent on the outside.... again, the magic is different but I still loved it!

Secret tunnel!

Secret tunnel! Secret, secret, secret tunnel!

The butterfly pavilion was free (as they should all be) and Abi loved it! She was able to hold so still and wait for a butterfly to land on her.

Abi held a butterfly!

Granddad and Grammy provided the kids a couple carousel rides which was the highlight of the day for my kids. They didn't want to get off!

The kids LOVE the carousel!

OK, how to explain this picture? My story will never do justice to the memory. But I'll try. After we finished at the zoo, the boys headed home with most of the kids and the girls did a little clothing shopping before heading home. This niece was the lucky kiddo who got to hang with the big girls. Before we headed home, we hit up Sonic's happy hour drinks because that is what we live for when in Topeka.

Katie spent several minutes explaining to her daughter how to not make a mess, giving gentle warnings, instruction, and pleas. This sweet niece was very compliant and one of the first to get her drink so that we were all distracted with our own drinks by the time we heard her squealing in distress. I looked over to see why she was upset and saw that she had shoved her straw so forcefully into her styrofoam cup that it went through the side and now when she sucked on the straw, only air came up. It was not leaking much as the straw was also plugging the hole it had caused.

I quickly grabbed the drink and held it slightly sideways so that it didn't leak out the top or the hole in the side while I tried to bring the rest of the passengers up to speed on our dilemma. My mom pulled into a random parking lot so we could assess the situation. She then handed me an empty water bottle to transfer the drink to so I opened the side door of the car, took the lid off the drink and then realized how ridiculous this was. The drink was a slushy. The water bottle had a narrow opening. So basically, as soon as any of the drink started pouring out, it was all going to come in a great clump and fall all over.

There was no way it was going to "pour" into the tiny bottle opening. And no one seemed to have a great solution and I couldn't help but start giggling and the more I giggled the more ridiculous the whole real life "Hole in the Bucket" situation became. Pretty soon I was crying, not just laughing with tears, but sobbing, full on sobbing, leaning out my side door, holding a leaky drink in one hand and an empty water bottle in the other and no one could help because now we were all laughing and crying. Haha! And my poor niece kept looking from one adult to the next with a look on her face that showed she just wanted her drink if we could all pull it together already.

Finally someone found a pair of scissors (what are the odds?) and cut the top off the water bottle so I could actually pour the drink into a new container and we continued on our way. But seriously, I have always thought that Hole in the Bucket song is silly and completely unrealistic... but it's not. Honestly, it's become a nightmare song for me, like I start to retreat into my mind and twitch when I hear it. Thankfully, it ended well with no mess in the car and most of the drink saved for my grateful niece.