Zoo Day

Josiah has had a rough week in the sleep department.  He has had several nightmares about copperhead snakes.  They have the Hershey Kiss markings and are venomous.  I have a neighborhood app on my phone and a copperhead was found in a neighboring development.  We also found a venomous coral snake at Awana several weeks ago.  (There was a very outdoorsy dad there who had an excellent time killing it.)  I think the combination of both those finds got his mind filled with dangerous, venomous snakes.  He's been up at 1:30 a.m. and 4:30 a.m. for several nights telling us about his dreams.  He's crawled in our bed for the first time in years.  The dreams seem to have subsided as the week has gone on, however we always make sure we are vigilant when we walk--eyes scanning our surroundings and never, ever barefoot.    

The kids favorite day of the week is Monday because I've dubbed it Media-free Monday.  Not really.  They hate it.  They argue that all their friends get to do media every day.  But, if they did not have media-free Monday, they never would have built this super cool Magic Track.  Creativity and teamwork for the win.

Early in the week our CC group was going to the Houston Zoo.  We had not gotten tickets, however the boys' friend had a few extra and invited Josiah and Henry to go with his family.  They went and had an excellent time.  Bobby and his mom are super fun friends.  With them, you are guaranteed to laugh a lot and have a really enjoyable time.  She took some pictures of their day.

For the zoo, I had given each boy $25.  I wanted to make sure they had enough money for lunch and a snack.  They used just about every penny.  They ate lunch and both bought Caroline a souvenir, which was incredibly sweet of them.  Josiah picked out a necklace that had a "C" and a giraffe on it.  Henry bought her a stuffed animal monkey in the shape of a ball.  

While they were at the zoo, Caroline and I did her school work.  Then we got Chick-fil-a and ate it at home while we watched Frozen.  It was a very nice chill time.  Later in the afternoon, we met up with the boys at a playground close by.  The boys had a light saber battle while Caroline walked their dog around.  He even went down the slide with her.  

At CC this week we dissected owl pellets.  Basically, an owl eats its food mostly whole, digests what it can, and forms a clump of undigestible fur, bones, feathers, etc.  It regurgitates that, and viola, our owl pellet.  These pellets were chock full of bones.  All the kids seemed to find a ton of rodent bones.  Both Henry and Caroline found rodent skulls and their lower jaws.  Tiny teeth were clearly visible.  It was both disgusting and fascinating.    

The week finished with us taking Josiah and his friend to their Latin tutoring.  It was a short session this time, so instead of dropping them off and driving back home, Henry, Caroline, and I had a pizza lunch at Costco and some playground time.  Their friend Bobby was able to come back to our house and the kids played for several hours.  More video games, more light saber battles.  All in all, they had a good week.

Now we are down to two more full weeks of school til Thanksgiving break.  It feels doable.  :)

The boys were waiting to be picked up on zoo day: