Our second tradition at the beginning of our homeschooling year is to take a trip to the zoo! We, at the Martinzoo, LOVE the zoo. We have such a nice one, too. It began as a tiny little zoo in a local family’s back yard. And it has grown into a fabulous, real zoo with an amazing assortment of cool animals. I didn’t get photos of the bears, the snow leopard, the tigers or the male lion because it was hot and the animals just wanted to sleep and be lazy. Maybe next time.
We went with one of the families from our homeschooling group. We don’t get together with this family very often because they have a brand new baby and have been kind of busy. Plus, they are loaded with girls and, typically, GB doesn’t engage well with girls. But he did this time! L was the kind of girl he likes, she loves animals and she plays like a boy. She even had a GI Joe battle with him in the car! So, he seemed very happy to have her along. I think she did much to improve his opinion of girls. Thank you, L!
After the zoo we had a nice picnic and then went on to the highlight of GB’s week; park day with ALL of the homeschoolers. So he had a great day! Not much schooling, but it was a very nice treat.
I also decided to put all our photos on a youtube video so that it wouldn’t take up so much space on my blog. Thoughtful, aren’t I?
Look at our swing set. Do you notice what I noticed this afternoon?
It’s one of my sunflowers!! Right there on the top of the swing set!
I just have this hilarious vision of a squirrel running through my yard with a sunflower clenched between his teeth, climbing the swing set, and perching on the tip-top to enjoy his treasure.
GB and I think that Peatsy looks chubby in this picture:
But after a trim and a shampoo, he looks like he’s dropped a few pounds.
I cut, and GB shampooed. It was a co-effort. And GB insisted on me including this picture that he took of Peatsy.
As if you couldn’t tell, Peatsy is GB’s best buddy!
Murphy had a rough night.
During the night I was awakened by whining from our doggie. He does that a lot. It usually means that he’s got itchy paws or clogged up ears. So I usually pat him to comfort him and then go back to sleep. But this time when I tried to comfort him, he bit me! That is not normal. So I woke up my dh and told him that something was wrong with Murphy because he’d bit me. When my hubby tried to check on him himself, he tried to bite him too! We knew that it had something to do with his front left leg because he was really guarding it. He was in so much pain that he was visibly shaking. It was really pitiful.
This morning I promptly made an appointment to take him to the vet. And GB and I endured a -painful- twelve minute drive to the vet’s office. That is one smart 15 yo dog. He ALWAYS knows when we are going to the vet. The loud yowling from the back of the car was piercing my eardrums. At one point, even GB lost his patience with Murphy and begged him to be quiet. Murphy hates going to the vet because he always has to get shots. And he hates to get shots. Who could blame him?
Anyway, after checking Murphy’s leg, Dr. Jordan figured out that he had dislocated his poor little shoulder. So he made a quick little maneuver and we all heard a loud *pop* that literally turned my stomach. Ugh! The nurse, GB, Dr. Jordan and I all just cringed at the sound. But when we looked down at Murphy he hesitantly wagged his little tail as if to say, “Thank you.”
Dr. Jordan said that dogs get injuries like this when they are jumping down from something. So we figured that it must have happened in the middle of the night when Murphy tried to get down from the bed and go out the doggie door to go outside.
GB wants to take Murphy to Bruster’s Ice Cream Store because they give the dogs their own dish of ice cream with a little dog bone in it. That will make up for all his trauma, huh?
Anyway, Murphy was very happy to sleep the rest of the afternoon away in his little bed. Isn’t he cute? He’s totally camouflaged.
