Bloomin' Butterflies!

The Como Zoo in St. Paul is having a special butterfly exhibit this summer. Madison LOVES butterflies. She gets so excited each time she see one. Since our daycare was closed on Friday, the three of us took a special family trip to the zoo to see the butterflies.

For an entire week, Madison told everyone that she was going to see butterflies.

When we got there, the very first thing we did was see the butterfly exhibit. Over 300 butterflies are released each week. Most are non-native species, so they were vary careful with double entries and exits. They also inspected each person for hitchhikers as we left.

The butterflies were beautiful and there were so many different kinds! Madison enjoyed watching butterflies eat oranges and watermellow. She thought it was neat that they liked oranges and watermellon, just like she does!

We also enjoyed the rest of the zoo. Como Zoo is really neat in that you can get really close to the animals. They had several different primates, including two gorillas. I am amazed at how big gorillas really are! They also had several lions and other cats. Madison really liked the zebras and the giraffes!

The highlight of the trip, however, was the carousel. Madison saw it when we walked in and said she wanted to go on the "circle thing." After awhile, she realized there were horses on the carousel. She asked to go on the horses the entire time that we were at the zoo! We saved it for last and Madison did not want to get off when the ride was over!

Father's Day

It was a nice, relaxing father's day here in Southern MN. We finally had a day of nice weather. Mike's dream father's day involved lots of food. He wanted McDonald's burritos for breakfast, rotel dip for a snack and grilled pork tenderloin with grilled corn on the cob and grillin' beans. After I realize how much food we had, I told him to invite his parents over for an informal dinner on the deck.

Mike loved the gifts Madison got him, including a Brett Favre tribute book (A compilation of all of the Sports Illustrated articles ever written about him!) and a new smart remote for the home theater. He was very excited and thought Madison did a good job of picking out presents!

After dinner, all of us were kicking a ball around the yard with Madison. It was one of those over sized, brightly colored balls that you see for $2.50 in every supermarket and Wal-mart on the planet. Madison loves her pink ball and kicks it around the yard endlessly. She also likes to sit on it and bounce and lay on her tummy on the ball until she rolls off into the grass. By some stroke of luck, Grandpa Lee kicked the ball and it hit the corner of the roof on the garage and it popped. The ball split in two and landed at Madison's feet.

This pretty much captures the look on her face as the ball dropped to her feet.

She starred at it for a full thirty seconds, completely stunned. We were all laughing so hard, but we knew that at any moment the tears would come. Boy, did the tears ever flow!

Once I calmed her down, I was able to get a few shots of her holding what remained of her ball. As you can tell - she is not very happy.

It resulted in Grandpa and Daddy making an emergency trip to Wal-mart for TWO new balls in pink and purple. Once Madison saw her new balls, she was quite happy to throw what remained of her old ball into the trash.

Call off the moving trucks

I no longer have to move to Canada!!! Mike has been saying for the past eight years "If Hillary Clinton is elected President, we are moving to Canada." I'm pretty sure he was at least half serious.

So - I'm breathing a sigh of relief today. I no longer have to worry about moving to Canada.