Thursday, April 28, 2016

Evansville Zoo

We love going to the zoo.  Our favorite is St. Louis but the Evansville one is a lot closer and it's easier to get to without having a panic attack on the interstate.  Bug had a big procedure in St. Louis last Friday and woke up on Saturday morning feeling miles better than she had been so to celebrate we woke up on Sunday and decided to do a spur of the moment trip to celebrate.

The zoo unfortunately isn't free like St. Louis, and to be honest, it does not deserve the high price tag.  Usually it only takes between 2-3 hours and we are done with everything.





Goose was our designated photographer for the day and she enjoyed taking pictures of everything.
Literally.  Everything.

 

My mom and I would visit this zoo almost every summer while I was growing up and one of my favorite and most cherished sentimental memories of this zoo is the monkey ship.  I can vaguely remember when the monkeys were on it and once when I was in high school we brought my nephew and he was able to do bumper boats around it.  Right now it sits in a sad and empty concrete pool and needs a lot of TLC, but it still is one of my favorite things to see in the park.


There was a new bear there that was right out in the open and easy to view which made the girls happy. 


Goose's favorite animal is the red panda so she spent a lot of time checking them out.  


And Bug's favorite is forever the zebra.  When she left their exhibit she told me she wouldn't bother me the rest of the day since she got to see them.






One of the newest animals at Mesker Park Zoo is the komodo dragon. 




I've decided that we are only taking zoo trips in cooler weather from now on.  We realized that during our STL trip last fall.  The breezy and cool weather means almost every animal will be out and about instead of hiding from the heat.  We saw everything on this trip, like animals that I have only witnessed there a couple of times (prairie dogs) and even some stuff we've never been lucky enough to spot before (the wolves).

When we left the zoo we did some much needed girl-time shopping at the mall.  Goose wouldn't pick out a Build a Bear so Bug picked one out for herself and for her new baby cousin.  They discovered the LOVE Fazoli's and we found out where the Barnes and Noble was.  They were thrilled when they seen it was two stories and the highlight of the store was riding the escalator. 

We were gone all day together, just us three, and it was fantastic.  I'm a happy mommy.

Tuesday, April 26, 2016

Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon part two

My second attempt at the Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon.  You can see my first try last year HERE.

This one didn't seem quite as productive as the first one but I was still pretty proud of what I wound up with.


 My first goal was to get a big chunk of Twenty Years After by Alexandre  Dumas out of the way.  This book is 800 pages and it is so boring I feel myself falling asleep when I pick it up.  So I was extremely glad that I was able to do 300 pages of it.  It left me with about 100 pages left to finish it up which wasn't near as daunting as it had been looking.

I also picked up Witches! The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem by Rosalyn Schanzer from my library just because it had a pretty cover and was short.  It was a little dry and I don't see my ten-year old reaching for it (which seemed like the right age group for this kind of book), but I did learn a little big more on the Salem trials so it wasn't bad.

My least read book for the Readathon was The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis.  Bug and I are reading through the Narnia books and this is our next one.  She let me read about a chapter and a half to her and it made her ready for bed.

I did about 425 pages overall which is about the size of one largish book so I think this day was pretty successful. 

Saturday, April 23, 2016

Pictures Taken by Goose

Goose won't get off my back to make a new blog post (Hi there cutie face), so here are some random pictures she's taken lately that I wanted to show off.

A snake that Panda killed and dragged into the backyard for us:



Our favorite man looking so dignified outside:


Some pretty tree shots at her Poppy and Nana's house:





My girl loves taking nature photos and even has her own nature Instagram.  I'm proud she's found something she loves and I hope she keeps it up. 

Monday, April 4, 2016

My March Book Pile

March was mostly an eh month for me when it came to reading.  I honestly didn't read for almost two weeks.  It was just sporadic and mainly consisted of me starting and stopping a half a dozen books.

Finally with about two weeks left in the month I buckled down and got back to business.  Bug had a big doctor's visit to St. Louis so we spent half the trip there in the car reading together and we managed to do about a quarter of her Narnia book that day which was a huge relief.  Those books are so slow and sluggish and I'll be glad when we're done with this series and can try the Oz books.

I also started spring-cleaning my house and listened to about 350 pages of Jane Eyre on audiobook while doing it which left me with just a small chunk to read on my own.  So that was a huge book I worked through just by deep cleaning my house.



Fave was, of course, Jane Eyre.  It's my favorite book after all.

Red Winter by Dan Smith was my second favorite.  It was a retelling of a Russian myth and I enjoyed it a lot.  It was a relatively slow starter but once the plot started to pick up I finished it off quickly.

Least favorite was probably book three of the Narnia series.  The Horse and His Boy was very boring and thankfully we had a lot of time at night to read so Bug and I shot through it.  Book four was a little more interesting.

I was a little disappointed in Texts from Jane Eyre.  There was very little Jane Eyre in it at all, which being the title you would think there would be a bit more than just a couple of pages.  All of the speakers came across equally no matter what story they came from.  There was always just one sarcastic person and one oblivious person talking to each other.

Hoping to finish my big Three Musketeers sequel for next month!

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Sunday, April 3, 2016

Introducing My New Buddy

There is a new addition to our family (my brother's, not mine) and I'm so happy to introduce the cutest baby boy alive.

Meet Ranger!



The last baby born in our family was Bug so it's been years since I got to squish a cute little baby face.  I love the stuffing out of this sweet boy already!