Oh THAT's Why They Call Them "The Crazies"!

I saw a commercial that said there was a baby elephant at the zoo, and I thought Elsa, who has always been partial to elephants, would like to see one of those.

Then it occurred to me that Ryan's sister was moving far away and we had wanted to see her a little bit before she did. We considered seeing if she wanted to bring the kids, but by the time the idea occurred to us, it also occurred to us that she had to pack. Then it occurred to us that packing is sooooooo much easier when there are no children calling you "Mommy."

So we stole all the children within range and took them to the zoo.

Where we saw one giant floating ball,
several turkeys, (which we stared at for a long long time because apparently this is nearly as interesting as looking at lions and tigers and bears),


And we saw monkeys; there were some IN the cage too.

"oooh oooh eeeh eeeh"

We got a great up-close view of the new baby.


We ate lunch with a zebra.


Adele found the zoo stimulating as you can see. And Tyda was number one!

There was a baby giraffe too.


The kids who group-posed on the lion right before us were WAY less cute than these kids. For real. We felt a little sorry for them.


There was a baby ...one of these. I think it's a leopard or something.



The girls stared at him for a long time. Almost as long as at the turkeys.

Look at that cage Hawley, it's a Hawley!

Kidding, it was a monkey when I didn't use flash.

Biggest surprise of the day: The girls who cower from goldfish, shy away from dogs, SCREAM at common house flies, these girls actually climbed barriers to move closer to THIS thing.

Wanna know what it is?

Look:

Pink birds are perty.




OK the picture I wanted to take was when these two were very seriously studying the map to see if we were getting close to the train or not. But this happened just as I went to take it. There was no urgency or anything, they just decided it would be a good time to run.
This is called "everyone do what Elsa does."


"Look at me when I talk to you!!!"


"But Daddy I love him!"

Ask any of them, this was the best part of the day right here:
They are such fun girls and I am just getting to know them. I was telling Ryan on the way home that I had thought they were cute and all that before but that what took me by surprise was that, after we dropped them off, I felt really sad.

I'm gonna miss 'em. We decided to take them because we thought it would help the moving process, but I am really really glad we got to spend a day with the lil' monkeys. And I hope there will be more days like that to come.

My Kids are Better than I Am

So Adeley can do push-ups. I am ganna start calling her "Bam-Bam Ruble" because she is one tough baby. I am told it runs in the Robison clan. I, on the other hand, cannot do a push-up at all. Not one.

And it would seem that Elsa can do...uh...this:

We don't have to be like one another to enjoy sisterhood. --- Barbara W. Winder

Never Pick-up Hitchhikers! (Unless they ask nicely and have a cute smile)

We picked up a hitchhiker after church on Sunday.

I know, we have heard all the warnings, we know better, but she was so cute after all.

And what choice did we have? She just kinda hopped in to the car...

She fed Adele her bottle until, she informed us, "your baby is all done."

She borrowed our phone and made a few calls on the road. Three calls to be precise, one to me, one to her Aunt "Moo Moo", and one to her mother.

But when we stopped and asked her to get out, she hijacked the driver's seat!

Frankly, judging by her confidence, we had the impression she had done this before.

Then she spotted our drinks, and before we could stop her, she went for them! (The little bugger was fast!)

These drinks had been sitting in the sun for a couple of hours though...

***No children were harmed in the making of this post (actually, she said the melted soda was good).

Biggest Slug in the World

We were walking the other night and ran in to this guy on the path. Now Elsa is concerned about how large a snail can actually be. I kinda wonder too now....

Happy Birthday, Old Man

To me, fair friend, you never can be old,For as you were when first your eye I eye'd,Such seems your beauty still. - William Shakespeare

Found in a Book Store

Quick, what's wrong with this?

Anyone?

Quick Visit With Dad

After two months of having my mommy take care of me (oh and the girls too, she took care of them too), she went home. So now I have to do all my own cooking, cleaning, and Adele will have to go to a sitter :( . She left Friday; I dropped her off at the curbside check-in, said goodbye, and headed to baggage claim to meet my dad who just landed here from Phoenix.

My mom does not really do pictures, so I have no documentable proof that she was here for over sixty days. However, my father digs the camera, so one full Saturday (we went to the Dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point) produced all of these:

Elsa and Ryan and Adele waiting to go into the museum. I think this is the standard "Elsa and Ryan pose" for pictures together.

Ryan teaching Elsa about ancient bugs.

I don't know this kid, nor could I figure out who his parents were. I doubt he knew where they were either.

This water-sand thing is supposed to be a hands-on way for kids to understand land formations and shifts. It's so gross though. All those little hands in the same vat of dirty water....ewwwwww.

This is my favorite dinosaur (triceratops). I think they were the best looking of all the dinosaurs.

Ryan feeding Elsa to the T-Rex. You gotta do what you gotta do.

Addey found the whole museum experience very exciting. She was enthralled the whole time.

Big fish, scrawny girl.

We saw one of the IMAX shows at the museum.

Adele seemed as though she would be cooperative. She was laying like this, but when the movie started she arched her body to look at it, and she actually turned her head and watched the screen contentedly for about 15 minutes. Then a T-Rex roared and she screamed and screamed, so I had to take her out.

What we learned?

We can take this baby to a movie, but it better be The English Patient.

I Flied?

No...I falled.

I don't know what happened. I remember I was running, and then there was air, and then I saw the road aiming directly at my face and getting closer very very fast.

Then luckily, my keen instincts set in and I threw my hands out before I hit the. I dug my palms in to the asphalt and stopped the motion of my face less than an inch from the road. My Feet were on the curb, my knees were in the gutter, my palms in the road. And I thought, "My gosh, that did not go well at all."
I rolled on to my back and pulled my legs to me (as soon as I could breath again that is, that took a second or two) and this is what I saw. Well roughly what I saw, but I had less bruising more bleeding.

Usually there is and older guy sitting in a chair smoking a cigarette and yelling at his bull dog in the house on the corner where I fell. Had he been there, I would have asked him to call Ryan to come drag me out of the road and drive me home. The guy was gone today of all days though (no bulldog either) so I had to pick myself off (I won't lie, I was crying a little) and drag myself home.

Actually, the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" theme song came on just as I got to my feet and I realized Buffy would never be held back by a skinned knee so I finished my run. Then I went home and I have been generally whining about it all day.

Ok now I know if you are a boy this is no big deal cause you do this showing off for each other all the time. But as I told Ryan, I AM A GIRL!!!!

This should not happen to the more delicate sex.

More Fun With the Robisons

Remember last winter how I said the Robisons like to tie an inner tube to a tractor, put the children in it, and then drag them around in the snow?

Turns out, it’s not just a winter thrill. There is a summer version too: same concept, only with a boat.

Winter, spring, summer, or fall, these people like to be dragged around in an inner tube!

I am just really, really glad that none of them own an airplane.

Seriously. That’d be bad.

This started out nicely. In the picture above I was thinking, "oooh, it's like a relaxing little ride. Now why does every one come back from this so tired? And why are they making me wear a life jacket?"


In the picture above this, taken about a minute after the first picture, I was thinking "weeeeeeeeeeeeeee" and Jenna was telling me something about leaning the direction she told me to lean when she told me to do it. I was also thinking, "I grew up in California, body boarding, people, in REAL waves. I can hang on to a tube in a lake, girl, pul--eeze!"

And in this last picture of that ride I was thinking, "ahhhhhhhhhhhh, humph, ouch, did I just fly a little? Why can't I breath? So much water in the face...so much ..."


When we got back, I felt a bit like a cat does, after you put it in the washing machine for a few seconds. And then Jenna said, "well he [Ryan, who was driving the boat] took it really easy on us."

So later there were two inner tubes tied to the boat with Ryan's two sisters' husbands on one, and Ryan and me on the other. Only we were having this thing called a war and Dustin leapt off his tube and on to ours and attempted to throw us in to the water...you can vaguely see him on our backs there. And in case you wonder. He was successful.

So here is Ryan getting up to, I would like to think, avenge me, but I believe he would have done this anyway cause that is, they tell me, the point of the war. To get on the other tube and pry people from it. I didn't need pried from it though, as you can see. I am not leaping. I am holding on for dear life.

Look at him leap! He's like one of those sugar gliders, hu? I still just mostly concentrated on staying on that there inner tube.

This is Ry shortly before he got on some water skiis. He's super cute! I will pause now for a long girly sigh. Ahhhhhhhhhh............

This is Ryan no longer on the water skiis.

This is Oakley saving his life.

And this is Kix, doing what he did all day.

This is Adele thinking it's really cool to sit with her toes in the water kicking it.

This is Adele after a wave broke over us that was big enough to splash us.


My poor baby.

And this is Zoey, cheering Addey up.

I missed Elsa the whole day. It was her dad's weekend with her. But I think she would have loved it. Hopefully, she gets to go when we do it again in a few weeks.