Happy anniversary, have a snake!

Oh my gosh, I just realized that today–yes today–is my one year anniversary of blogging!  Haven’t my faithful readers, all five of you, learned a lot of silly, unimportant things about me? Mostly that I love sweets and hate doing anything hard, especially the laundry.  Or any household chores for that matter.  And that I’m a super good wife and mother who spends all day overseeing her children’s many enriching activities.

As my anniversary gift to you, I’m giving you a picture of me with my ugly haircut, which I swore I woudn’t do.  I have sunglasses on my head, so my hair doesn’t appear quite as lifeless and boring as it normally is.

I finally got enough gumption to do something entertaining with my kids for spring break. We made the one hour pilgrimage to The Snake Farm. (If you don’t like driving, don’t move to Texas. They have everything in this state, but it’s the size of France, so most likely you will have to drive an hour or two–at least–to see what you want to see.)

The Snake Farm is a very old-fashioned reptile house/zoo. Mostly it’s a large room filled with aquariums that have snakes and other critters inside. If you have sons you are most likely well-versed in snake info. Which snake is the most poisonous (Tai pan*), largest (Reticulated Python), fastest learner (Cobras. Who knew?). So a chance to see a lot of these snakes up close was a very big deal for the boy-folk in my family. Plus snakes are just cool.

The rest of the Snake Farm is a zoo. It’s my favorite kind of zoo–low budget. No fancy habitats, unless you consider a chain-link cage with some old logs inside fancy. The zebra exhibit, for example, was also the gazelles-with-weird-horns exhibit. It was also the shetland pony and longhorn cattle exhibit as well. Talk about killing a lot of birds with one stone! 

There were a bunch of random monkey cages as well as some lemur exhibits containing lemurs that were not happy to be there. Have you ever heard a lemur scream? It’s very loud and very horrifying.

No old-school animal attraction would be complete without a petting zoo.  Instead of a bunch of greedy, brazen goats, which is what most petting zoos consist of, this one was full of pigs and poultry.  Which makes it more of a petting farm than a zoo, but I digress.  Due to the fact that we used to have chickens, my kids are quite expert at catching them; much to the envy of the poor city kids who could only look on jealously.

India was determined to catch this duck with a fro.

York let the chicken and llama have a moment to make out.  Get a room, you two!
Everyone loved the pigs.  Especially Jasper.  Ada doesn’t appear to have a fondness for animals.  She kept asking if she could go sit in the car instead.

We were in and out in less than two hours (including the black hole known as the gift shop).  The temperature was a lovely 73º, and the place was so small I didn’t need to bring my stroller.  So I actually enjoyed myself. Who knows, we might actually have a few more field trips before my children leave for college! (if you want to hear about a bad zoo experience, my sister also went to the zoo yesterday (but in Salt Lake).  You can red about it here. Isn’t that weird that we both were on the same zoo wavelength?

*When I asked York the answer to this question, he replied, “well, that’s a hard question to answer.  The Tai-Pan has the deadliest venom.  But the Black Mamba has venom that’s almost as deadly and it’s also the most aggressive.  So really a Black Mamba is the most dangerous snake.” Thank you, Jeff Corwin.

| Filed under Blogging, Family, Kids

13 thoughts on “Happy anniversary, have a snake!

  1. happy anniversary!! i have seen that snake farm but always thought it was just that – a snake farm so we have never stopped. i think i could do it for the other animals!! looks like your kids enjoyed themselves!!

    india played great in the yw b-ball game today. she played tough defense and had a lot of points. it was fun to watch her play and I think she might have enjoyed herself!!

  2. happy anniversary! i love your blog…very entertaining! i think your haircut looks good…what are you complaining about??

    wish i would have done something nice for my kids this week! way to show me up 🙂

  3. You have such a great blog! I wanted to get in here and say Happy Day to you. I don’t think I have commented before but am certainly a dedicated follower of yours! Cute family. And I agree that Texas is one big place!!

  4. I don’t mind driving an hour or two. It is the endless 15 hour drive you must make to get out of this goddess-forsaken state. If you drive anywhere, 90% of the drive is getting out of TX.

    And I agree, that hair-cut is not really complaint worthy–it’s cute.

  5. Well, you have at least five more readers than I do and I have been blogging since the dark ages!

    Love your picture–you are so beautiful—and your kids are adorable!

    Love petting zoos—I plan on taking my G-babies to one when they come to visit me in June—sigh…

  6. Happy blog anniversary. I honestly do not know why you don’t like that haircut – it looks really good!

  7. York cracks me up. He got grandpa Jim’s mechanical ability, but he also definitely got Great-Grandpa Henry’s verbosity, scientific curiosity, and analytical bent. Plus, like Henry, he will teach you into the ground, like it or not. WHAT A GREAT KID!

    Of course ALL your other kids are fabulous as well. Now I’m drooling to come! Imagine India doing well at softball! Those were my most loathed and dispised moments of Mutual!

    I thought going to the zoo with Arianne was FUN!

  8. Trick question: snakes aren’t poisonous! (they’re venomous). york cracks me up. I hope he comes to live with us some summer.

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