Whew, is today over yet? It was a whirlwind day and we did a ton. Started with swimming lessons (Carlos put his face in the water, woo hoo!) then headed right off to Tacoma to go to the zoo. I told the kids that they would have to sleep in the car if they wanted to go see the animals, and holy cow, it worked! They all slept about an hour. I figured a nap could only help our cause. We stopped for a quick sandwich at a picnic area outside the zoo and tried to get a little food in the kids before we got inside the gates and they claimed starvation and tried to drive me broke with zoo concessions. We laid down the strategy (no running away, no begging for toys, don’t torment the animals, etc) and got to see lots of animals. Trey wanted sharks, but didn’t get that they were going to be tiny, Carlos loves the belugas, I have NO idea why but he loves them, and Levi just wanted to see a monkey. We saw the sharks and belugas and more and asked a zookeeper where the monkeys were (by this time my dogs were barking and I was ready to head out but wanted to keep my promise to Levi to see monkeys) and she said they only had apes. The kids didn’t get that they are very similar so when we saw some apes Levi and Alice both screamed, “monkeys! we better go tell that lady that they DO have them”) Ah, sweet innocence.

After the zoo we stopped into Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital to visit our friend, Josiah, who is 6 months old and just had surgery to get a g-tube. He was doing great, and it was good to see him and Carolyn (his foster mom). I think she appreciated us stopping in and we brought him some super cool skater shoes and some funny shirts (“I pulled an all nighter” and “Instructions not included”)

Ended the day with a trip to Home Depot with Mama Dee and Gramma Patti. They are their Mama Dee’s boys because they LOVE that place. Fun trip and a nice dinner out before coming home to crash. The boys went down pretty easy tonight, but Carlos thinks there is a dinosaur under his bed….dude, you have smart mamas who know it’s just a stall tactic! HA!