June 17

I made a promise to myself that at least once a week this summer, I would do something different with the kids - go to a different place, hang with some different people - basically change up our routine and just enjoy the summer. We have been having major drywall work done at our house and just finished cleaning up the mother of all messes. We literally had drywall dust from one end of the house to the other. So today, we put aside all nagging errands and commitments and went to a local petting zoo/park.

Tyler had so much fun feeding all the animals. He loved the goats and the huge cows. There were some very cute piglets as well. I bought Tyler a couple of bags of food and posted by all the animals are these signs that read, "Hold onto bags, animals will try to grab them." I kept reminding Tyler but a very boisterous goat made a grab for his bag. However, that goat picked the wrong three-year old to mess with. There was no way any little goat was going to pry that precious bag of goat food out of Tyler's little hand. Tyler held onto that bag so tight that when the goat pulled it through the feeding opening, Tyler hit his head on the fence as he followed after it, but still he held on. I thought he might actually be pulled through until the goat, surprised by Tyler's tenacity, dropped the bag and moved on to an easier target.

After we got our fill of petting, feeding and hand disinfecting, we had a little picnic under these huge oak trees. Oh, I miss big trees so much!! It was such a lovely day. I kept thinking to myself, "Why don't we do this every day!?"