Wild Weekend

It was a Kiddo weekend, that’s for sure.

Saturday, J had to go to the doc and get some blood work done.  Nothing serious, just standard bloodwork for a yearly check up, so instead of fasting all day and trying to teach, she scheduled it on a Saturday in the morning at first appointment.  After that, however, she wanted to hit the climbing gym and I wanted her to have some time for her; She’s been working so hard to finish her Masters (two more weeks!) on top of teaching, mom’ing, wife’ing, and general awesomeness’ing.  That said, I was on Kiddo all day Saturday.  It was great.  We got to doctor for a bit and then she helped cook again.  She’s really getting the hang of it.  We did a tofu stirfry and Kiddo rocked the greenbeans and celery.

The real fun was going to GET the produce.  It was a lovely weekend.  Really just fantastic weather.  Yesterday it was 23 out (74F) and Saturday was 21 (70F) out.  So, we hoped on our bikes and rode over to pick up some stuff.  I managed a few pics of Kiddo biking and isn’t she the coolest.

Once there, we got what we needed and she helped pick out the beans, celery, carrots, bean sprouts, and mushrooms.  Little chef did great.  While I was paying she wanted to go see the bunny that was outside in a cage.  She was happy as a clam in tide pool sand.  I gave her about 5 minutes to chill with Mr. Fluff Hops, but she probably could have spent 5 hours.  

That wasn’t the only animal in our lives.  Sunday, with the weather being great, we hopped on the Metro (see what I did there) and headed to the Wild Animal Park.  It’s on the Metro line, but about 2km off it, so once there, we needed to get a car to the park.  We arrived at 11am and got our tickets and headed in.  After a lunch on a patch of sun dappled grass near a bird exhibit, we started marching around the park.  Light pants and shirt sleeves were the order of the day.  Just gorgeous.  And FUN AS HELL!

It’s a great park.  We didn’t get to see all of it, only half, and we missed the real gem of the park; The bus through the predators of the savanna.  Kiddo has done it now… twice.  Once in the Spring with H when they went and once with her Animal Kids Club over the summer, but she was itching to show J and myself how cool it was.  Sadly, the lines were an hour long.  J and I were willing to do the wait, but Kiddo punted on that and told us we could catch it next time (there WILL be a next time for sure) and we could come earlier and do it first.  Great plan.  Instead, we visited the money and primate area, saw the zebras and ostrich enclosures, watched an Orangutang rope walk, saw pandas and red pandas, we even saw the fattest and cubbies trash pandas ever.  Yeah, they had a whole raccoon exhibit.  The penguins are awesome and my favorite, but even Kiddo was loving it and we could get so up close and near them that they were an arm’s length away.  I might have been able to stretch and touch one, had I wanted, although I wouldn’t.  Never mess with the wild life unless trained is a pretty good rule of thumb in my book.  

The real fun came towards the end of our time there.  We headed towards the back of the park and the African and Asian elephants.  The African elephants were all being a bit standoffish, but it was still cool to see them.  Massive and majestic creatures.  There is a spot to interact and feed them, but with them being standoffish, that was closed for the time being.  For 30 RMB, we were more than willing to allow Kiddo interaction time, but no dice.  Maybe next trip.

The Asian Elephants, however…. They were having a TIME.  Seriously, watch the vid.  Puckish and fun loving.  I swear you could see them smile.  There were a few other groupings of them and they all were equally as playful with the crowds.  It was a real blast seeing it and having them play back at the crowds.  We hung out for a while and they kept at it for about half an hour.  I wish I could have gotten more video, but they were teasing some of the crowd, interacting and targeting babies and showoffs, people trying to get selfies would get targeted.  These guys were rad.  

After that, we got a car home, as we were all burnt after 5.5 miles walking.  Yeah, we earned the bedtime.  You can see the sleepy girl face in the car home.  Once home we chilled for a bit and then ordered a pizza.  It was pretty good pizza from a new place we tried.  Then, we watched a Top Chef while munching.  After munching, we tossed Kiddo in the shower and then, like usual, she had a treat and we watched another Top Chef.  She’s digging S4 right now.  It was great.  Then, bedtime and we can’t speak for you, but the crash was loud.  Shook the walls of our building.  Knocked some trinkets down as well.  Girly crashed hard.  We popped in around 21:00 (9pm) to check on her and turn off her lamp that she left on and I’m serious when I say that we could have marched the UW-Madison Badger marching band thru and she might have rolled over.  That’s a 50/50 on might.  She wasn’t so much asleep as dead.

Speaking of shows, before I go….

I had it called to my attention that there is a new Dexter called Dexter;Resurrection.  J and I enjoyed the first 4-5 seasons of Dexter.  It was interesting TV.  An interesting story.  A serial killer who kills serial killers.  There have been reboots and prequels and the like and we’ve not seen them.  They didn’t rate that well.  The new one, however, was rated well and so we found it and took a shot at it.  Frickin’ Fantastic.  If you are a fan of the original, the new one is worth the price of admission.  If you haven’t seen the original; give it a go (it’s a bit gory, FYI, but not exploitive or overly explicit) as it’s a interesting character in an interesting world.  Good story telling.  Trust me, however, quit after S4 and go to Resurrections.  S5 isn’t bad.  S6 gets weird.  S7 gets weirder.  S8… yuck!  

Let’s go, Kiddo… We had a great weekend and can’t wait to Wild Animal Park with you again, maybe in spring, but if the weather keeps for a few more weeks, maybe before Xmas.  Thanks for the animal knowledge you dropped on us yesterday and all the excitement you gave us.  It was wonderful watching you bounce around and love the day.  It was sweet to see you cry over the penguins.  It was amazing seeing the elephants with you.  We couldn’t have asked for a better day…. Well, maybe a coffee stand somewhere in the park, but besides that, it was great.