Park & Zoo

07/28/06 – Upon waking up this morning, Elliot’s first sentence was, “This isn’t relaxing AT ALL!” We were so tired and didn’t want to wake up. Stella had a hard time too. We had a French toast breakfast at Unka and Auntie’s again (made by Mom, Unka, and Todd), and then headed to Washington Park where we were planning on taking the train to the Oregon Zoo. We missed the train, and they supposedly only ran every 45 minutes, so we decided to do games and lunch first.



So we found a picnic area to play some games and set up the lunch. Julie and Todd were in charge of the games and they did a great job. We had a lot of fun. To get us into our groups, they had us draw a piece of paper from a hat that had an animal name on it. At their start, we were to make the animal sound and find everyone else making our same sound. I was a frog. Lindsay, Stella, Mom, UD, Aunt Lora, Unka, Alecia, Marci, and Alex were in my group. The other groups were the pigs, ducks, and dogs.

We played a game where there are several rolled up newspapers and each group has the same amount. We weren’t allowed to guard our papers on the ground, but were supposed to run back and forth trying to steal the newspapers from everyone else. We could only carry one at a time. I had Stella in my arms, so I gave one to her and held one myself. After the time was up, we had to open the papers and there was a number written on them. We added the points up and the ducks won that one. This was the beginning of duck domination.

In the next game, we had to have 5 people sit on the picnic table and the rest of us had to race through, one at a time, and paint 2 toenails on each person and run around the table. This was funny because Unka, Alex, UD, Stella, and Alecia were the lucky people to get their toes painted. The ducks also won this game.

The next game was putting our heads on the baseball bat and spinning around 3 times and then running to a piece of paper across the lawn and back. This was funny because everyone was dizzy, but it was also funny to see the oldies try to spin around! The ducks also won this one.

Elliot during the donut eating game

The last game was a donut eating contest. They were hanging from a string and we had to go one by one and lay on the ground and eat the whole thing off of the string and run back. The ducks, of course, won this one as well. Every time they would win, they would clap their hands together and chant, “Quack, Quack, Quack, Quack!”

JuJu Bear





My team, just standing around watching the duck team win





Ashlyn and Zach Butterfield





Marci and Bill, displaying Bill's femininely tied bow at his neck and painted toenails

We ate our sandwich lunch (provided by John and Savanna) and sat around talking for quite a while. Then I heard the train come and go again and wondered why no one was gathering us together to get on the train. Finally it was about one o’clock and we still hadn’t started heading towards the zoo. The older adults didn’t feel like going anymore, but the kids still wanted to, so we all got back in our cars to drive to the zoo. This was frustrating because parking was the pits! Elliot dropped us off at the zoo (for which I’m grateful) and then had to actually park far enough away that he had to take the shuttle back! He wasn’t very happy.



Lindsay rented a stroller for me to put Stella in and she loved it because it was a Safari Stroller that had a steering wheel on it. We stayed at the zoo for 1 1/2 hours and then headed home to freshen up and go to the church for family pictures and dinner.

Someone from Unka’s single’s ward took our pictures and then we ate a yummy taco salad dinner, provided by Scott and Stacy. After dinner we went into the Relief Society room and watched the video that John made for Grandmother. It was really emotional, but I was busy with Stella and didn’t have a chance to be touched as much as I would have otherwise. I did get teary when, during one part, John quoted Grandmother’s life story about the last night she spent with Grandfather. Lindsay was bawling and she attributed part of that to missing Keith. Another funny quote is by Lindsay when she was commenting on me not bawling like she was . . . "Are you made of stone?!"

John did a fantastic job on the video and I can't wait to see it again!