Black Pine Animal Sanctuary

A few weeks ago we went to visit Grandma Young and go to a get-together at my cousin Megan's house.  We had a few hours in the afternoon and decided to go check out the Black Pine Animal Sanctuary, which happens to be located in my grandma's town.  This is a place where abused or neglected exotic and/or circus animals are rescued and given a better life.  We paid a little extra to go on a guided tour while they were feeding the animals, but it was definitely worth it because we got to see the animals up close.

 Our guide was so good with all of the animals.  You can definitely tell she loves her job!  This chimpanzee cracked me up.  When we first arrived, he was inside the building watching football on TV.  She had to call him a few times to get him to break away from the tube and come eat.  Sometimes these primates are so much like humans, it's scary!  ;)

 Reid loved the alligator.  This big guy was actually being raised in an IU fraternity.

 These creatures are beautiful!  Joel and I were both surprised at how deep their growls were.  You could almost feel the hair stand up on the back of your neck whenever they growled. I think we were both glad we were on the other side of the fence!  I wouldn't want to run into either of these guys out in nature.

 Recognize this animal?  It's a white fox...something I had never seen before.

 This lion was huge!  I have a better picture of him later.

* **Warning:  You might not want to look at this next picture if you get grossed out easily.***

 These tigers love to eat the heads of deer.

 The wolf pack

 My crazy animals

 My pictures of the bears didn't turn out that well, but here is one of the 4 bears.

One of the bears was rescued from a place in southern Indiana where it was chained to a tree and then attacked by dogs in order to train them how to hunt.  As a result, the bear is blind and has several other health impairments.  I guess it is still legal in North Carolina, and Reese wants to write our congressmen to let them know that it should be outlawed.

A better picture of Mufasa, the lion.

So if you're ever in Northern Indiana, I'd definitely recommend checking this place out to support their efforts!

Table Jumping

This is one thing that wouldn't have been allowed with the first kid.  But by the time the third one does it, it's like, "Eh...whatever!"  Or maybe it's the fact that Reid is our baby.  Who knows?  Anyway, in Hilton Head he loved jumping from our king sized bed onto the nearby couch in our bedroom.  A few weeks ago, he climbed up on the coffee table and started to jump to us on the couch.  One night he had us laughing so hard, and I kept thinking, "I need to grab my camera!"  But it was also one of those nights when I just decided to live in the moment and not feel like I had to capture it.  Still--I wish I had taken video!  ;)

Here he is jumping to Joel and Ryan.  He was doing "Eenie, meanie, miney-mo," which really came out as, "Eenie...eenie...tie-gah...tie-gah...TIE-GAH!" and then he would just jump whenever he shouted "TIE-GAH."  ;)  You could never really tell when he was going to jump as sometimes he would say "tiger" 5-7 times, and others he would only say it 3 times.  Also, you couldn't count on eye contact as sometimes he would be looking straight at Joel and then decide at the last second to jump to me.  It certainly kept us on our toes!

 All hands on deck!

 More "Eenie Meanie"

 I thought this picture was so sweet.  At one point, Reid bumped his mouth.  Ryan said, "Here, Reid--let Ry-Ry take a look."  Ryan is such a good big brother!

Again, these are not the best quality pictures, but they captured Reid's spirit pretty well!

Blog Book, Bug Bites, and Backpacks

Every year since starting the blog, I have compiled all of the posts into a hardbound book.  It is so rewarding to me to know that the hours and hours I've poured into recording our family memories aren't just going to be lost in cyberspace.  It's my hope that these books will be pulled out at family reunions 10, 20, 50 years from now to bring us joy.

This year's book took me the longest to compile.  I don't even want to know the amount of hours I put into this as I'll think about all of the things I could've been doing.  It is not the fastest program to use, and I'm kind of a perfectionist, so it took for-ev-er.  I started in January and worked on it for about a month and a half.  I took a few breaks here and there and then started working on it again in April, May and June.  I was so thrilled as well as relieved when I finally submitted it to be printed!

 Ta-da!  The 2011 edition

  A look inside...

 There's no transition into these next two subjects, though they do start with the letter B.  Reese tends to have bad reactions to mosquito bites.  Here is one she received this summer:

 It was actually warm to touch and got bigger each day.  Poor girl!

Reid loves putting on backpacks and has to put on Reese's or Ryan's every once in awhile.  I guess he has one that he takes to Abbey and Claire's (Michelle's girls) bus stop every morning.  He can't wait to go to school someday!

And that's it for today's post, which has been brought to you by the letter, B!

Backyard Scrimmage

With the temperatures cooling off a bit in the evenings, we've been able to come out of hibernation and play in the backyard at night.  A few weeks ago we had a great scrimmage of boys versus girls.  We all had so much fun and even included Reid in some of our plays.  :)

 The boys look so menacing!

We look like we're all sugar and spice, but we're not very nice on the field!  :)

I look forward to many more nights like this as the kids get older!