Despite the Heat

Roger has just finished up a two week stretch of working. By that I mean, two weeks of working straight with no days off. This happens every month because of his military commitment. Luckily, he now has a week off and it is also Alex's last week of summer. I really wanted us to enjoy these last few days together as a family before we got wrapped up in the hustle and bustle of school. Roger and I, with Alex's help, planned some fun activities together to celebrate our last days of summer. First on our agenda: the zoo! We are really going to miss taking Alex to the zoo. We've always enjoyed going during the quiet off days, such as Thursdays. And we haven't been all summer. So it was really fun to go, despite the 100 degree heat! We strategically planned how we would maneuver the zoo so we wouldn't die of heat exhaustion. You think I'm exaggerating. I'm not! So we decided to see some of the animals that were outside during the early hours of the morning, when the temperatures were only in the nineties. The first animal we saw were the elephants. Not this is how to stay cool when the temperatures are up!

This is one of the reasons why I love the zoo. No matter how many times we've been, we always experience something new. I've only seen the elephants playing in this pool one other time and I think it was when Alex was about two. The kids thought this was the greatest thing ever: the elephant taking a bath! And it was so amazing to see that trunk in action! We even went up to the windows and saw the elephant up close and personal.

We then managed to work our way through the zoo, seeing a lot of the animals along the way, before we started to melt. Then we popped into an air conditioned exhibit right as we were starting to really get warm. I've said this before, for Alex, he loves going to the zoo to eat! His special treat is the cheese pizza. He's been eating cheese pizza at the zoo for three years now. He's always happy about that.

From here, we managed to hop from one air conditioned spot to the next. We ended on a "cool" note by seeing the penguins on the way out and cooling off with some ice cream. Addison picked out a wild colors ice cream -- it was a vanilla flavored ice cream in these crazy colors of neon yellow, bright blue and red! All I can say is: KISS, You've got nothin' on my Addison!