Family outing

Last month, I quit my weekend job. This past weekend was my first one at home and the boys insisted we celebrate with a family outing to the zoo and aquarium. We had a great time, seeing everything in the aquarium, riding the train to the zoo, then back to the botanic gardens. Gary didn't remember he had the camera until we were leaving the zoo, to catch the train to the gardens, so all the photos here are from the later part of our day.

Here's the picture that got the boys shouting for the camera. The boys love the free-roaming peacocks at the zoo. With spring almost here, the birds' tailfeathers are filling out. Dan on the train -- both boys just glowed all day. They're very happy to have time for family trips again, and to have me home every day now.

Andy, happily riding the train -- another glowing face!

Andy is telling Dan something that's interesting enough to hold Dan's attention for a few minutes, at least.

Dan watching the world go by from the train window

At the botanic garden, there's a children's fantasy garden, with everything set up as it would be if the kids were ant-sized. Here's Andy at the bottom of the slide there.



The boys at the overlook to the maze at the center of the fantasy garden.

Turning on the faucet in the garden. It doesn't turn at all, but gives a nice illustration of how big thing are in the garden.

Andy and me on the train ride to the gardens.

There's a garden-size train track at the Gardens, with two or three trains running most days. We enjoyed watching the trains go by.

There's a controller -- at the push sign -- for a small pushcart train on a small oval track in the middle of all the other train action. Dan loved running that little train.

Here he's giving a token look at the camera. Not sure what the look is about, but it was just too cute to pass up.

We all had a fabulous day together. We weren't far into our zoo time, when I told Gary that even if it means we eat ramen noodles 6 nights a week, we need to keep our weekends free so we can spend time like this with the boys.

After the zoo trip, we ended our day at Jenny & Chris' farm, where Dan spent his first overnight away from home, with his best buddy Scotty.