elephants!!!

The kids were so excited when our friend Natalie asked us to join her and her daughter on a trip to the Brookfield Zoo today. See, Alex's favorite zoo animal of all times is the elephant and even though we go to the zoo on a regular basis... we never see any because the Lincoln Park Zoo no longer has any elephants.

So... first order of business today was to go see these guys....
... so exciting!

Then we wandered around for a bit before heading to the dolphin show.

Here's Clara waiting for the show...
And a couple of shots from the show (the first isn't very sharp, but I liked it anyway)...

It was a short show, but a really good one. Alex came out of it amazed and kept saying that he learned so many new things about dolphins from the show.

Next we grabbed hot dogs for lunch before heading to the Stingray Bay exhibit.

Here's a pic of the kids at the exhibit...
Alex was a little reluctant to pet the stingrays at first... but then he got into it. Clara was all gung-ho at first and then got spooked. I don't think Mallery had any plans to actually touch the stingrays! :-) Alex wanted desperately to pet one of the sharks, but they stayed under the waterfall the whole time.

From there we saw the big cats, Clara lost her second pair of sunglasses this year, the kids rode the carousel and then we snacked in dippin' dots. I have carousel photos but I ran out of steam before I got any of them edited.

I didn't post last night because I didn't take any photos. We had a big day though. After Clara's two week dance intensive, her instructor sent me an email about how well she had done and the potential he saw in her. Due to this, he wanted to continue to work with her this summer even if it was just for a couple classes a week in what remained of their summer intensive sessions. So, yesterday she went to ballet... and because she loves the tap instructor, she stayed for tap as well. After that I had to stop by the local tea shop for a Mint Julep Iced Tea.... yum! Then we headed to the park. I had only intended for us to stay for about an hour... but 2 1/2 hours later we were still there. The kids had made friends with a boy who lives close to the park and who had brought lots of toys to play with. They had a great time. I had my camera... but I never got it out.

Tomorrow morning I have a dentist appointment and not long after we get back... Jeff should be home!!!!!! Yay!!!

Clara is supposed to go to dance tomorrow afternoon but I'm not sure how motivated she will be with Jeff just getting home. Maybe he can go with and that will help.

Okay... I could ramble more but the dog is completely freaking out over the thunderstorms we've got going on right now and she's making me crazy!!!

'nite!