dallas zoo

This picture is from Sunday night. I told the kids they had to sleep in their own room for the first two nights of the trip and if they were good and went right to sleep they could earn sleeping with their cousins over the weekend. I'm glad I thought to do this because I think it helped to delay extreme sleep deprivation. However, I never had the heart to make them go back to sleeping in their own room. They stayed up late every night of course, and I often wondered why I on earth I was allowing this. But then I went to check on them Sunday night and I just thought, this is what memories are made of. Yes everyone could have used more sleep but I'm guessing one of their top memories from this trip will be playing and being silly in the bedroom at night. And I guess that's worth having a bunch of tired kids on our hands.

The kids being silly with some random stick.

 Monday was day for the zoo! The forecast was a little iffy but we decided to go for it. I'm so glad we did. Perhaps the iffy weather kept people away but whatever it was it felt like we had the zoo to ourselves.

Moms are chopped liver when there is a grandma around. :)

 She's kind of like a celebrity with her adoring fans.

 The first thing we saw was a parrot who was putting on a little show with a zookeeper. I snapped a few pictures of mom and the kids from the other side of the "exhibit". The first of many serendipitous events of the day was capturing this look on my mom's face. Priceless.

 Next up was a cheetah show.

 It was pretty amazing to watch the cheetah run and see it so close up. It was fascinating to learn about how they house this particular cheetah (their ambassador cheetah) with a labrador retriever to help him feel more comfortable when they take him out in the community for events.

 We went to see the lions next.

  A little picture of Emry just to remember she was there. Just being super chill and hanging out.

 I loved seeing the animals so close.

 This giraffe had a serious tongue issue. It just hangs out of its mouth all the time. Mara said it was like that last time they were there too. So weird.

 Cheese face!

 Hey, I was there too!

 Declan being his usual cooperative self.

 And then we do a silly picture so he flips around and flashes a completely not silly smile.

 Baby elephant!

 Splash pad. For some reason I let Mara convince me to not bring swim suits again. ;) And surprise, surprise everyone ended up soaked.

 We realized too late that we totally did these activities in the wrong order. Get the kids wet and then send them in with the dirty goats? Yeah, real smart.

 It's funny to me how you take your kids to the zoo to see all sorts of exotic animals and the goats are probably their favorite. Could have just gone to a farm. :)

 As soon as we climbed in the van it started to rain. Not even joking, we pretty much patted ourselves on the back for a great day full of impeccable timing. The zoo was empty, we happened to get to exhibits just in time for the keeper talks and shows, we left before the rain, etc etc.

Well folks we spoke too soon.

Mara was merging from one freeway to another when traffic suddenly stopped. She had to slam on her breaks but stopped in plenty of time. There was a small pause and then we got rear ended by a truck. We were all quite shocked and weren't quite sure what happened. There was no real shoulder, lots of traffic, the man who hit us had no insurance, the back window was completely gone and it was raining. Suddenly our luck sure turned, eh? Jade was feeling a little scared. Little Lucy kept saying she wasn't scared. And Declan really wanted to know if we called the cops and wondered when they would get there.

 Declan fell asleep while we were still on the "side" of the road. Apparently he wasn't too traumatized.

 We hung out at a gas station for awhile waiting for Ben to come and help us figure everything out. Grandma bought the girls a soda which they thought was the greatest thing ever.

 Our luck sure took a turn for the worst, but no one was hurt so really in way I guess it didn't. Since Mara is pregnant her OB said she should probably go in to get checked out. Nothing really went according to plan in the hospital and she ended up being there the rest of the day. But gratefully everything with her and the baby was completely fine.

In the mean time, mom and I hung out with the kids. Poor Emry had lots of little piece of glass on her. We showered everyone who had been in the back seat. After the shower I tried to feed Emry but she totally freaked out which is very unlike her. At one point she threw her head back and I could see a piece of glass in her neck! Poor girl. I got it out and all was well. :)

Not exactly the perfect ending to our day. But all in all we were left feeling pretty lucky for a pretty awesome day.