Splash Day

Our weeks have been very full with birthday parties, swimming, therapies, and play dates, but you wouldn’t know it by reading my blog, because school has completely usurped all my free time lately.  On a side note, I only have two more classes and my internship left before I finally graduate from my Masters program!  As of the end of July, you can make that one less class.  I am so excited!

Back to the music.  We escaped to the zoo splash pad with some friends one weekend about a month ago.  We have annual zoo passes, because going to the zoo here is a “just right” kind of diversion.  When it’s beautiful out (most days), the animals are active and we wander around feeling like we could be somewhere much more exotic than Phoenix.  When it’s not feeling so beautiful… in other words, over 100 degrees, the kids can still romp around in the splash caverns and then traipse about the zoo for the next twenty minutes while our once-soaking wet swimsuits create wearable swamp coolers for our bodies while they dry (and yes, this only takes twenty minutes… tops).

     

Gabe was fretting over a spider web on the ceiling of the caverns.

  

Ari wants her face in the water all the time.  As with last year, people still think she’s drowning, because it’s hard to fathom that a girl who doesn’t have much muscle control would have the most herculean breath control imaginable.  She rarely comes up for air – kind of like a dolphin.  And, the milk inside her cereal bowl is no exception to the incessant face dunking/bubble blowing.

Ari isn’t afraid of animals anymore (for now, *fingers crossed*), which is awesome timing because she is scheduled to begin Hippotherapy (horseback riding therapy) in November!

 

An exceptional bonding moment was witnessed here briefly.  It could have gone on much longer, but Jake was hungry and impatient and he didn’t realize about the bonding moment until I told him later.  Isabella and the mama Orangutan (forgive me, she has a name but I forgot it) locked eyes and truly connected.  Mama orangutan didn’t come close to the window until she saw Bella standing there.  Then she scooted right up to the glass and they both stared at each other without distraction.  It was really special to watch them together.  I can’t explain why, but it touched my heart.