How Did You Spend Your Leap Day?

That seemed to be the question of the day on the Internet, TV and radio. Most of my "leap day" was spent just like always.....at school (though we did go to Young Chef's Academy for a field trip and that was different and fun). After school was a different story.......

Ron and I are volunteering at the "March for Meals" 5K tomorrow morning (we have to be AT the zoo by 6:40 AM...CRINGE) with Jaycees. I needed to pick up our tee shirts so we wouldn't have to change when we got there in the morning and so after getting Clay from school, it was very nice outside, the boys and I decided to go on and utilize our membership by spending an hour or so at the zoo before picking up the shirts and meeting Ron for dinner at the Salty Nut.

We had a really good time. Their were way more people than we anticipated (January and February are free on Fridays for Richland and Lexington residents. I'm guessing that explains it), but most of the animals were in rare form. The flamingos were hilarious...they were "talking" and stretching their necks. We saw the lemurs for the first time. Not sure how we missed those. And, then we got to see the new baby koala....it is SO cute!! Maybe they all new today was "leap day" and they were taking advantage of it!

We go to the zoo quite a bit, most definitely getting our money's worth from the membership. And, I have taken hundreds of pictures, but I still always take my camera and take more. It seems that every time we go, there is something new to document.

I'm sure the zoo won't be nearly as great at the crack of dawn in the morning so I am glad the boys and I enjoyed it this afternoon! :)
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Taking the Kids to the Zoo

It rained yesterday. And, we took a field experience (like a field trip from our day) to the Riverbanks Zoo. It was cold, it was wet, but it was really fun. We had a great time traipsing through puddles to see the animals, who by the way were out and loving the rain, and attending education sessions. The day only brought one little problem...which I will blog about seperately.

I can't post of my pictures on here because of the students in them, but I thought I'd share a few of my favorites. Picture 1: the gorillas got into a fist fight while we were watching! The kids LOVED it! Picture 2: My favorites....the lions!

This was trip 2 to the zoo this week. Trip 3 will either be tonight or tomorrow night.

Converse at the Zoo

On Sunday, Clay, Ben and I (Ron had to miss out because he is sick) headed over to Rivebanks Zoo for Converse Day, sponsored by the Converse Alumnae Department. It was the perfect day for a trip to the zoo. The weather was gorgeous and it was cool in the earliest part of the morning and never got too hot. The animals were out and many of them were actually showing off!

After visiting a couple of animal exhibits we decided to take the tram out to the botanical garden. I had only been out there once, many years ago and very briefly at that time. The gardens were beautiful and I was able to get some really good shots with my camera. When we got back over the zoo it was time for the buffet lunch of chicken fingers, hot dogs, brownies and fixings...delicious! After lunch we stopped at a couple of more animal exhibits (since we're members we come frequently to the zoo and try to not do everything everytime) and then headed downtown to drop Ben off at a friend's house for the afternoon.

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I was a little disappointed that there didn't appear to be too many alums that took advantage of this event and I didn't see anyone that I recognized from my class. But, it did get me excited about Reunion Weekend in April and I love the Converse string bags they gave us!

Funny enough, this was the first of three trips to Rivebanks in the next week.....yesterday, this coming Friday we have a field experience planned for the Upper Elementary and then next Sunday we'll be back for "Boo in the Zoo" (which we can't wait for after seeing all the decorations in the daylight yesterday!). The animals will know me by name soon! :)

Last Minute Fun

With Ron and Clay camping for the weekend, Ben and I called my parents on Friday night and invited them to come down and go to the zoo with us on Saturday. They arrived on Saturday morning and we started our day out at the Village at Sandhill. My parents have wanted a palmetto tree for their car window (if you aren't from SC or don't know someone from here that probably doesn't make any sense....almost every car you pass in SC has a palmetto tree sticker on the window...they come in all colors and themes from military, polka-dot, Carolina, plaid (like mine), and a million other styles). I had seen a gold one at a store there. We ended up walking around for a while and stopping to peruse the sales at Ann Taylor Loft and picking up a new Vera Bradley for my mom at Le Bag Lady.

After lunch at Chic-Fil-A, we stopped at two other stores that carry VB as my mom was also looking for a checkbook cover to match her pattern. No luck! We then, at Ben's insistence, headed to the Riverbanks Zoo for the afternoon. It was actually very nice outside, only a little hot, and we had a great time.


When we left the zoo we headed back downtown and towards the stadium. My parents had never seen Columbia and the game trappings of Game Day. So, we braved the traffic and long lines and circled around so they could see all the 1000s of people tailgating and trying to get into the parking areas. It made me really wish I were going to the game. :( We setted for dinner at 5 Guys in the Vista before heading back to our place and they got on the road home.


Thanks for coming to spend the day with us! Ben and I had a great time and we'll look forward to taking you to the state museum the next time!

Ear check....

We LOVED the meerkats! They are SO cute!

It was Enrichment Day and Ben had the opportunity to make a fruit loop bird feeder.

Fun Day at the Zoo

Clay broke his phone a few weeks ago, about the same time we realized that he was texting and downloading while our bill was increasing. Because of that, we haven't been too pro on spending a whole lot on a replacement phone for him. As it happens, though, one of Ron's fraternity brothers works for Verizon and he just got a new phone. He graciously agreed to give Clay his old phone (which is much nicer than what Clay had -- it even still has the memory card in it!) and, so, this leads me to how we met George and Allie, his girlfriend, at the Riverbanks Zoo today!

We knew we were eventually going to join the zoo and this gave us just the excuse we needed. Allie is a biology/education major so she was a wealth of animal knowledge for the boys, and us.

She wanted to see the penguin feeding and I'm really glad because we probably wouldn't have hung around for it and it was too cool. I absolutely LOVE penguins! (Second only to lions and Boston Terriers, of course!)

I also loved the farm area. For some crazy reason I am fascinated by llamas and goats. (Weird, I know!) I used to drive to this one area of Inman just to see the llamas....Ron thought I was crazy. So, I enjoyed "talking" to them.

Ben bought food to share between two of the goats. This guy was obviously hungry....he took it all for himself!
Clay loves animals and says he'd like to be a vet one day. Today, he said he'd like to work for a zoo, possibly.

I love this picture of us!

The weather wasn't exceptionally hot and we all had a terrific time.

Funny story of how small the world is: as we were leaving, we ran into one of Ron's fraternity brothers and former college roomates! Ron hadn't seen him in years and he lives here in Columbia!