All the Monkeys are not in the Zoo!

We have had so much fun with my sister Brenda the past several days. She flew in on Saturday and I just got home from dropping her off at the airport this morning. We miss her already! She is so fun to be around. She makes every task or outing an adventure. I definitely wish that we were closer.

After we picked Brenda up we went out to Grapevine lake and had a little picnic out by Grapevine Lake. We had the perfect picnic spot right across from a group of Llamas! We even had a clean up crew--a couple of hungry dogs cleaned up all uneaten sandwiches whether we were done or not. After our little repast we took off on our hike. It was a little wetter than I like. Of course, I should have anticipated that aspect of our hike since it rained all day long the day before! The rains provided a new level of adventure on our hike, however, as we had several "water crossings" that otherwise wouldn't have been there. The kids had a great time hopping over the streams. Surprisingly enough no one fell in! It was a lot of fun.

Sunday brought an absolutely gorgeous day. We had a leisurely morning--except for me frantically trying to prepare my Gospel Doctrine lesson that I had neglected preparing during the week--never a good idea! At church, Brenda was quickly discovered and put right to work. She got to play the piano in primary!

Monday was a rainy cold day. We spent most of it huddled around the fire. There's nothing like a fire on days like that. In fact, that is one of my favorite things. I love rainy/snowy days curled up in front of the fire with a book. In this case we were curled up with multiple books as we worked on our school work for the day. Everyone finished up their work in fine time, and since Brent was out of town for a couple of days we didn't have to worry about keeping the house too clean or having a nice dinner. So, we took the afternoon off of our normal household routine and went to see a movie. Now, me not thinking that I needed to look up reviews for a Disney movie just piled everyone in to go and see The Princess and the Frog. That will teach me to trust Disney. Parts of that show were just downright evil! If they could have skipped the whole voodoo the show would have been adorable. I understand that there must be an antagonist, but this was over the top. Anyway after that we went home for some "sugar popcorn" and hot chocolate.

Yesterday was cool but bright and sunny. We couldn't pass up the opportunity to be outside and do a little monkeying around at the zoo. we had most of the zoo to ourselves. It was pretty sparsely populated. The animals were all up and fairly active which was fun to see. Normally they are bumps on the logs. But we had everything from the prowling tiger to the slithering snake to the playful apes. It was great fun. The kids were even able to hold several birds which was definitely a highlight for Allison.
I guess that our adventures are probably over for the week and we should put our noses back to the grindstone! Or maybe we should bask in the afterglow and be lazy today! Thanks for being an awesome sister, Brenda! Love you!