whirlwind day

we hit the ground running this morning with a trip to ZooWorld! I love zoos, I really do, and this is consistently one of the best I've been to. The animals are active and cute and only a little gamey smelling. They had a Bengal tiger show which was okay...the best part, they had a "splash zone." Before you ask, I'll just say that no water was in the picture. The announcer lady said if they stopped in front of you and lifted that tail straight up in the air...take cover. I very nearly was hosed one time but that particular weapon discharged a few feet to the left. It was very funny to watch people scattering when one tiger or another would back up to the fence in front of them. I saw some VERY manly kangaroos (surprisingly so for such a small animal), a mandrill WAY too interested in his female companion, a peacock taking a dirt bath and one of the stinkiest duck ponds it's ever been my priviledge to catch wind of. I took lots of pictures since, nerd that I am, I cannot pass up a trip to a zoo! I was disappointed in the petting zoo as there was very little to pet...if you can believe it, the goats weren't even very interested in the food we had to offer and usually a goat will eat anything put in front of it. Lots of tamarins and primates of various kinds and descriptions. Beautiful lions, tigers, leopards, panthers, and cougars. You just have to love the big cats!

I watched Shelby absolutely hose down her dad on the bumper boats! Since Dave and Conner were in the same boat, that boat was riding low in the back compared to Shelby's. While their water gun was shooting straight over Shelby's head, her water gun was grazing the top of Conner's head and hitting Dave square in the chest. It was aqua carnage! After that it was off to the go carts with the Shelby-Karen team squaring off against the Conner-Dave team. The track was too long for me to keep track of who won, but Conner informed me later that it was, of course, the boys team.

After that we dropped an obscene amount of money in an arcade then headed back over to the Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum to use our movie tickets from earlier in the week. The line was just too intense the day we went through the museum, so we put it off for a few days hoping there would be a more convenient day we could go...and today was that day! The features for today were Journey to the Center of the Earth and The Haunted Mine. The chairs you sit in for this 4D experience look like something out of a science fiction flick...there's even a seatbelt involved (and boy did we need it!). Conner chickened out on the chair and requested that his not move. He also didn't wear the 3D glasses we had that brought the action right into our laps (it looked funny this way but I couldn't talk him out of it) and fans simulated the rush of wind created by a fast moving underearth traveling pod...you know, like you do when you travel to the center of the earth. There were lots of rail riding action, swings, drops, crashing through barriers and rotating effortlessly in zero gravity voids under the surface. The Haunted Mine was not haunted. There were some bats flying around with us at one point but I didn't rate that as unusual OR scary. There were several drops I did have to close my eyes on to get rid of the falling sensation...it was just too intense. The mind is truly a wonderful thing indeed to produce the feeling of movement just by the info received from the eyes and the sensations and sounds perceived by the skin and ears. I found myself laughing out loud several times just from the fun of it! ...so much better than the Chevy Show at Six Flags Over Georgia (or getting your feet cut off I might add to that)!

Trips to the beach and the pool have taken place while I sit here but maybe I'll catch up later. I'm still suffering from some tenderness from the sunburned legs plus the lasagna's almost done :) We'll see how the evening goes. I'm hoping another Phase 10 competition will take place before we go, that's fun too.

Our time here is quickly winding down and I must confess that I am not quite ready to leave. Normally I'm ready to go home after being away for more than two weeks but not this time. I petsat for a week and have been here for a week also and am NOT ready to go home. This is the first unobstructed time I've gotten to have with Shelby and Conner for at least a year (as Shelby unabashedly reminds me at every opportunity) and it hasn't felt like enough. She has to start school in two weeks (where did their summer go? mine was longer way back when...) and we won't get to do anything else :(

so sad ! ! ! woe is me ! ! ! woe is her ! ! ! the agony ! ! ! the depression ! ! ! (not the Great one of course)

evenin' ya'll!
htw