This Girl Loves Grapes

Skye's always loved grapes, but eating fresh grapes straight from the vine while playing in Papa and Cookie's back yard is the best!

Lions and Tigers and Snakes, Oh My!

The fun part of our Labor Day Weekend was spent at the Out of Africa Wildlife Park near Camp Verde, north of Phoenix. This place was so amazing! It started out with a safari to see African animals like this giraffe. The bus driver/trainer got out of the bus to coax Pilgrim over. Everyone got a carrot to feed him. That's Skye's hand. It was so neat to be that close to the giraffe.

Then we saw some zebras including a couple of really cute babies!
The trainer made the zebras "smile" in order to get a treat.

Out of Africa is filled with shows including the Tiger Splash where trainers play with these two female tigers, sometimes getting them to jump into the pool with them.

Then we saw a snake show.

After the show, everyone got to go in and pet these two giant pythons.

It was so cool! You could tell they were powerful animals. And yet, they let hundred of hands touch them! If you ever get the chance to pet a big snake like this, take it!

After the snake show, Skye insisted on going for a camel ride.

She was all smiles riding that camel with Daddy and is still talking about it!

Don't be fooled by this picture. I know this hyena looks small, but it was quite large and scary looking. Lance was sure it was eyeing Skye as if she could be its next meal. I would never ever want to run into a hyena in the wild. Those things are freaky!

This cougar, on the other hand, just looked like a big, friendly cat.

Well, maybe.

I LOVE tigers! I think they are the most beautiful creatures in the whole world so I was thrilled to see this one so close up. The reason it wasn't off sleeping is because it was almost meal time. Yep, the final show was the Predator Feed where trainers come around and huck big chunks of meat in for all the predator animals. Once, this tiger jumped up and growled at us. It definitely made my heart race, despite the fence between us.

The lion enjoyed his meal.

We ended our trip with some slightly more mild creatures--birds! If you're ever looking for an animal adventure, I totally suggest checking out Out of Africa.

Palm Trees Are Exotic, But Aspens Are Magical

And I prefer the magical. Last winter here in Phoenix was wonderful, but I've determined I don't really belong here. I need to live somewhere closer to the mountains. We went camping up in Flagstaff last weekend and had a fabulous time. I needed the time to get away and relax and enjoy and be in the nice, fresh mountain air away from the heat! We got this great campsite beneath these huge pine trees. Skye loves playing and hanging out in the tent.
She also had fun eating and playing with marshmallows. She wanted to copy us roasting them.
So we let her use the big stick we were using.

But she had more fun playing with it in the dirt.

And getting dirty herself! She finally tried to take a bite of the dirty marshmallow. Of course we quickly stopped her because...YUCK!

It was a beautiful, cool morning with the aspens rustling in the wind.

Skye also had fun playing with this bone we found. It was probably too small to be an elk bone, but we saw some while driving to our campsite and then that evening we heard some!

Flagstaff bouldering is soooo much fun and on this beautiful limestone!

It's too bad we don't get to climb much anymore.

Of course Skye got in a little climbing, too!

But also found other ways to have fun! Don't even ask...It was hard coming home.

Cute Skye

I thought it was time to just put some new cute pictures of our little Skye on.

To Clarify

Just to clarify about my previous post, I wasn't trying to say that Lance is a slob and always leaves his underwear lying around the house. He isn't a slob and doesn't always leave his clothes everywhere. He just happened to this one time and I thought it was cute and funny watching Skye try to put them on. She is learning about how to put things on and take them off--like she's all into taking her shoes and socks off by herself these days and tries to pull her shorts up and down herself. So I thought it would be fun to take some pictures of her and joke about it. Lance is a wonderful husband and dad who cares about his family and would do absolutely ANYTHING for us and our happiness.

Playing Dress Up

Skye had fun playing dress up the other day with some of Daddy's clothes. Apparently it is now fashionable to wear underwear around your neck. I hope Lance doesn't get too embarrassed about these pictures, but that's what he gets for leaving his workout clothes in the living room.

Apparently it isn't fashionable or comfortable to have your head through the armhole of your shirt!