Empty Promises

We learned that the St. Louis Zoo was free within the first week of living here.  In our foolishness, Will and I promptly PROMISED (we're such suckers) the kids that we would take them.  The first time we tried it rained cats and dogs.  Although the kids were disappointed, it was easy to point out the window at the gusting, pouring down rain and reluctantly say, "Gosh, kids, we really wanted to take you to the zoo today, but darn the weather, we just can't!"

As ones slow to learn from our mistakes, this past Saturday we again hyped the zoo to Everett and Juliana. "Who's wants to go to the zoo today?!?!?"was quickly followed by tumultuous shrieks of excitement.  If our kids are anything, it's that they excite easily and quickly.  And have the memory of a elephant - they NEVER forget.

*(As a side note - last August on the day of Everett's preschool orientation I was running late (shocking) and in my haste to get out of the grocery store parking lot I hit a police car.  Of course, I had all three kids with me.  It was tragic and even I, with my heart of stone, burst into tears.  It was ugly.  Be glad you weren't there.  Unfortunately, nary a week goes by when Everett isn't either reminding me of that incident or telling others about it.  Just a few weeks ago after church his Primary teacher told me that although the lesson was on being obedient, Everett felt the need to share the "my mom hit a police car" story yet again.)

So after a morning of yard work and lunch, off we went to the zoo.  We were really going!  And it was a gorgeous, sunny day!  I have to admit, I was feeling pretty darn spiffy.  My thoughts ran along these lines: "Gosh, we are SO fun!  We told them we'd take them to the zoo and here we go.  They're going to remember this forever!"

Unfortunately, everyone in the metro St. Louis area had the same brilliant idea to visit the zoo, and they had one up on us because they had gotten there earlier in the day.  By the time we got there, there was literally and honestly, not a parking spot to be had.  The line of cars backed up to get in was completely ridiculous.  With Giselle's screeching, Juliana's constant questioning, "Is that the zoo?  Where's the zoo?  How do we get into the zoo?" and Everett pointing out parking spots that even his bike couldn't fit into, Will and I quickly realized a visit to the zoo had eluded us once again.  In an effort to make amends, we went to the closest "attraction" we could find: the St. Louis Science Center.

If you promise the zoo and then deliver the science center, expect your children to be a bit...underwhelmed.  But like I said, they excite easily and quickly, so after a few minutes, they were having a good time.  Inside I was thinking, "Wow, we really dodged a bullet.  I can't believe they're not putting up more of a fuss about missing the zoo.  I have the greatest kids!"  Until we were walking back to the car after it was over and Everett said, "NOW can we go to the zoo?"

(This picture pretty much sums it up.)

Happy Mother's Day to Me!

I have quite a few posts up my sleeves to catch up for the past month, but I really wanted to post this little gem.  

Last week we drove (yes, DROVE) back to Atlanta to attend the cultural celebration and rededication of the Atlanta LDS Temple.  It was wonderful to be there and we have some neat stories to share, but that's a different story for a different post.  While we were there, I called Everett's former preschool teacher, Ms. Kathy, to see if Everett could drop by his former place of higher education to say hello.  Everett LOVED preschool, Ms. Kathy, and his friends and was definitely sad to leave them.  Ms. Kathy was more than happy for me to drop Everett off at preschool for a few hours.  When I picked him up in the carpool line, he had this wrapped Mother's Day present:

My Mommy by Everett, 5 years old, 2011

My Mommy's eyes are: blue, I think.

My Mommy's hair is: black

My Mommy is 31 years old.

My Mommy likes to: play with me and my sister.

My Mommy is the most pretty when: she is the prettiest she can be.

My Mommy is the funniest when: I get home from school.

My favorite thing my Mommy cooks is: rice and beans.

My Mommy's favorite color is: red.

What my Mommy does all day is: she cleans the house a lot.

My Mommy likes me to help her: do the dishwasher.

My Mommy loves me because: I am wonderful.

The best part is, aside from the eye color (seriously, Buddy?  Blue?!?), he was right on.  I am 31!  My favorite color is red!  I rock at cooking rice and beans!  I do clean up a lot!  Color me impressed that he has been that observant to know/notice the answers to those questions.

As a side note, discussing everyone's age and favorite color is something we do quite a bit whenever we're driving in the car.  It usually goes something like this:
E: "I'm 5 and Juliana's 3 and Giselle's 11 months." (which Juliana then repeats)
and then
E: "And Mommy, you're 31, but Daddy's only 30." (which again, Juliana repeats)
And then we go through cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents and their ages.  After we've exhausted ages, we then move on to colors.
E: "My favorite color is green and Juliana likes pink and purple.  Daddy likes blue and Mommy, you like red, right?"  Once I answer in the affirmative, Juliana then repeats.
Seriously folks, we go through those above conversations probably 5-10 times a day.  Don't you wish you could ride around in our car?