Thursday, August 27, 2009

I Love Fall!

As I have written before, fall is hands-down, no-competition, my favorite season. This week the weather has been cooler in the mornings and evenings and I am getting so excited! I love that it is cooling down earlier this year and I'm hoping it means an extra-long fall :)

The boys and I took advantage of the cooler mornings yesterday and we went to the zoo for the first time since it got hot a couple of months ago. We spent 3 hours there and saw every single exhibit, even the petting farm (usually we skip some areas because it is so big). I love how inquisitive Caleb has grown about the animals. I was able to teach him all kinds of basic facts like how to differientiate between turtles and tortoises, monkeys and apes, and lions and lionesses. He can also correctly identify which animals lay eggs and which ones have babies grow inside them. His method for this is not foolproof, but it works for now: if the animal has fur or hair, it grows inside its mother, and if it does not have fur or hair, it hatches out of an egg.

Just like at the beginning of last fall, the animals were very frisky yesterday. The lions and tigers were pacing, the zebras were romping around a bit, and the monkeys were playing. Even the diamond back rattler was slithering all over its cage. I've almost never seen those giant snakes move, so that was a treat. We also met a homeschooling mother of six while we were sitting in the "Outback" kangaroo habitat. Her kids, ranging in age from 3 to 17, were very polite, happy, obedient and helpful...I was very impressed. Everytime I meet a family like that, I am determined to homeschool! But even while I'm getting excited about it, I remind myself that what works so well for many families may or may not work for mine, so we will continue to wait and watch before we make our decision.

Well, we had a very enjoyable morning at the zoo, and we're looking forward to many more such mornings this fall!

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