A Giraffe Touched Me ... and Other Fun Events

My mom was here for the only nice week that we've had in a long time at least weather wise. It's currently POURING outside and I have the heater on. Normally I don't mind the weather around here, but I'm cold and my head hurts, so I feel like complaining.

But, my mom lucked out on the weather. She also lucked out that I had a pretty busy week so she got to help me. Hooray for her!


We started the week with a little bit of shopping and decorating. (As soon as I find some pictures for the frames, I'll show you my beautiful new shelves in the bathroom.) Then it was on to cutting vinyl for the Family Home Evening boards. (Which turned out GREAT! Thanks for all your help Mom!)


Then, the real fun started.


I was trying to find something new and exciting to do when my mom came. She's been here a lot and I get tired of the same-old-same-old. I love zoos so I started thinking about going to the zoo. We have a great little zoo in Tacoma called Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium. It's nice, small, but nice. But we've already been there. So, I got really brave and started looking into going to Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle. They've been talking a lot about their new meerkat exhibit, so it got me looking at the website where I found out they had a Giraffe Feeding program. This was the clincher for me. You see, my mom LOVES giraffes. They're pretty much her favorite animal. When we were in San Diego about a year and a half ago, there was a Giraffe Feeding thing at the Wild Animal Park, but it cost $90. Yeah, $90! That was just too much for me to want to do it. But, here at Woodland Park Zoo it cost $5. I can handle $5 so off we went.


We hopped on the ferry and headed to Seattle.

Have you ever wondered what your GPS would look like if you were on a ferry in the middle of the Sound? I had...this is what it looked like. Kind of funny. We're in the middle of the water, ahh!

Here are some of the fun animals we saw at the zoo:

I have to say that I was kind of disappointed in the meerkat exhibit after all the hoopla! There are ads EVERYWHERE you look. The map even has this BIG old sign pointing to the meerkat exhibit. Then you get there and there are 20,000 people and 5 meerkats. So, don't go to Woodland Park Zoo for the meerkats. You'll be disappointed.
When we saw the orangutan's enclosure, we couldn't see any orangs...then we looked closer and saw that they were all asleep under burlap sacks. Interesting.

And then to the reason for coming! Feeding the giraffes. I must say, this is well worth it!
We got up to the feeding platform and there were three giraffes in front of us. The keeper talked about what to do for a minute, then he blew a whistle and the big male giraffe came right over and started eating out of our hands. It was really cool!
You were only up there for about 10 minutes, but it was really cool. I would totally spend $5 and do that again.

Then we went over to the bird exhibit where you could feed them. Unfortunately, it was later in the day so they weren't that hungry. You basically had to put the food right in front of them for them to care, but they were still pretty.
And just to prove that we were there...
We didn't hit any horrible traffic on the way home, so it was a good day!

Then on Friday, we went and got pedicures...ahhh...then picked up Brent from work. We were going to go to the Viking Fest in Poulsbo. After much confusion on where to park, we got the Viking Fest and it was...well....REALLY disappointing. The "Food and Craft Fair" consisted of about 20 booths. Not too cool. So we went home and made crepes with nutella in them. YUM!

On Saturday, we had a slow morning, then went to the Gig Harbor Farmer's Market, which was fun, but not as fun as the Port Orchard one because the Port Orchard one is right on the water. Then off to Kopachuck State Park. We always pass the sign for Kopachuck State Park, but we've never been there. It was a nice park. Although it was quite a hike getting back to the car from the beach, but I think it was worth it.
I had to put this one in because Brent is actually smiling. It was surprising!
As you can see, it was a beautiful day, but no where near warm enough to be in the water! I swear, kids don't feel the cold!

So, to sum up:
Woodland Park Zoo for the Meerkats - No
Woodland Park Zoo for the Giraffes - HECK YEAH! The rest of the zoo isn't that bad either.
Viking Fest - a big old NO!
Kopachuck State Park - wear your walking shoes, but yep!

All around a good week! Thanks for coming Mom!

Where's Daisy??

Bet you can't find her hiding place this time...
I know, she's a mystery to us too!

See Ya Clock

You may have noticed that I have taken off the clock that says what time it is in Japan. Why did I do this? Well, because I really don't care what time it is in Japan anymore because Brent is home safe and sound. Woho!

I do have to apologize though - he came home on Tuesday. I was just so excited / busy that I forgot to update my blog. It's getting to be that time of year - Girl's Camp is coming so I'm wearing two hats - Relief Society Counselor and Camp Director. So ... it should be fun!

Have a great day!

The Star Wars Effect

There have been quite a few shows on Star Wars lately that I've been watching. Yesterday there was one on the History Channel (does anyone else think it's weird that a show about Star Wars is on the History Channel?) about how Star Wars is a hero's journey and all that sort of English stuff that I never really cared about but found it interesting when it was Star Wars.

Then, I watched one on the Biography Channel about how revolutionary Star Wars was in it's time.

Why all the Star Wars stuff right now? I have no idea. It's not like it's the, what will the next one be....fortieth anniversary of it coming out...is that right. Holy cow. Anyway, all this stuff on Star Wars has really gotten me thinking. A lot of my life has been influenced by Star Wars in one way or another.

When I was young, I was TOTALLY addicted to the movie Star Wars. I watched it well over 100 times. Much like the Toy Story's and Cars of today. I was positive that I actually could understand what R2-D2 was saying, but it was just that I had watched it so many times that I knew what the other characters were going to say. I loved it. (I still have most of the movie memorized which Brent thinks is just hilarious!)

I had A LOT of action figures. I'm not sure how many, but a lot. My cousins and I would play with them for hours in my grandparent's backyard. For awhile our favorite thing to do was to pull up some grass - my grandma's favorite thing - then bury an action figure under the grass. Then we would inevitably forget where it was until my grandpa mowed the lawn and we heard the infamous thunking sound of yet another action figure getting chopped up.

The first movie I ever remember seeing in the theaters was Return of the Jedi. It was awesome!

When I got a job and had my own money, one of the first things I got was what we now call the original trilogy on VHS. It was in a cool box. I thought that was great.

In college, I met this guy who I really quite liked, and I thought really liked me. He found my VHS tapes and figured that if I was cool enough to have Star Wars, then I was cool enough to date. We've now been married for a really long time.

To this day I still laugh when I think about how I stood in line for THREE HOURS to see a movie that I had already seen over 100 times. But I had never seen it in the theaters. And they had improved it.

Then I bought the special edition on VHS.

Then they came out with the "prequils" which were ok, but will NEVER be as cool as the originals. Although I have to say that the first time you hear Darth Vader breath in the prequils is one of my favorite movie moments.

Then I bought the special edition on DVD.

And the prequils on DVD.

So last year when Brent said that he wanted a blu ray player all I could think of was, "Now we'll have to buy Star Wars again!"

To recap:
Number of hours spent playing with Star Wars action figures: well, a whole childhood
Number of action figures sacraficed to the lawn mower: a lot
Number of husbands "caught" by having Star Wars: 1
Number of times I have bought Stars Wars: soon to be 4 - as soon as it comes out on blu ray

Is my obsession with Star Wars at an end? Never. We're now starting to influence the next generation. Some of our nieces call Brent Uncle Gungan. Court and Brad's kids were addited to the movies for quite a while, although I don't think Brent will ever forgive the girls for liking the ewoks so much (they're like little bears!).

I realize that movies like Avatar are amazing for this time, but they owe it all to a little movie that was suppose to flop, but ended up changing movies forever!

May the force be with you...always!