the family that plays together

Hot on the heels of Kristie's perfect day, the Ouiser fam had one of our own. Saturday, finding ourselves with a complete and utter lack of plans and no to-do list, we headed to the zoo. While S has been a little under the weather (cough and a low-grade temp), she was feeling good...unlike our Father's Day trip to see the "amals" (there is neither an "i" nor and "n" in the word animals in S-language.) Anyway, S was super excited and claimed that she wanted to see birds when we asked her what animal she wanted to see. Luckily, there are some gorgeous Hyacinth Macaws as soon as you amble into the Nashville Zoo. She, of course, loved them...and then the monkeys...and then the meerkats. Then we saw the "ephants" and the "draffs" (elephants and giraffes for those of you in need of an S-to-English dictionary.), and she loved both of those, too. Then came the request for more birds. There is an exhibit called Lorikeet Landing. Basically, you walk into a big birdhouse, and the very lovely lorikeets fly all around your head. And, get this, they will land on you. I'm not sure if I've mentioned my fear of birds, but when I saw the sign saying that the birds might land on me (read: claw my eyeballs out and eat my brain through the then empty eye sockets), my heart sped up drastically. I didn't want to deny my daughter, though, so I sucked it up and walked in. And promptly walked out the other door and watched from outside. One of those little suckers buzzed the tower, so to speak, and I couldn't handle it. S thought it was cool. I did not. Thank goodness for daddy.

We were brave this time at the zoo, and we actually let S walk around instead of staying confined to her stroller. This meant that she was able to go into the "Unseen New World" exhibit to see the snakes and spiders and turtles and fish. She didn't care that much about it, and wanted to go back outside to see the "amals." Apparently, snakes and the like don't qualify as "amals" to an 18-month-old. We left the zoo around 10:45 as S had fallen and scraped her knee and it was approaching the we-must-leave-if-we-want-lunch-before-we-have-to-head-home time. We were able to beat the lunch crowd to Baja Burrito, which is one of my all time favorite places to eat. S enjoyed the pineapple salsa and the constant parade of people saying hello to her.

After her nap, the whole Ouiser clan headed to the tennis courts. S had a blast running around and chasing tennis balls and digging strings and racquets and whatnot out of the bags. Needless to say, her daddy LOVED it. He's already proclaimed that she has great form on her forehand as she would swat at balls as he bounced them on his racquet for her. We'll be buying her her very own tiny tennis racquet this week.

So that was our perfect Saturday. I think we must've worn her out completely as she's been borderline unbearable since then. We're assuming that she's just tired (we took her church and to play tennis again yesterday) and that the crankiness will die down. Otherwise, I may sell her to the gypsies.

I'm out, peeps. Have a great Monday.