June: A Tale of Three Zoos, Two Birthdays, and Some Other Things

Taylor has wanted to go to visit the Critchlow Alligator Sanctuary just outside of Battle Creek ever since her first heard about it. But the cost was pretty prohibitive for the whole family to make the trip so one day he offered to pay for mine and Mikel's admission if we'd go there with him. We were happy to oblige. The place is really cool--I had no idea something like that existed so close to home. Basically it's this little place where this guys takes in and raises alligators. Most of his stock comes from people who thought it would be awesome to have a pet alligator and who then find out pretty quickly that it isn't that awesome to have a pet alligator. Lots of the alligators are born there as well. At any rate he has quite a few acres of property with various sizes and types of alligators. The owner acted as our tour guide and took us all over the place telling us about each exhibit.

                                   

 Taylor paid an extra fee to be able to go and feed one of the biggest gators there. But we also got some extra food so we could all have a chance to feed some of the other ones too.

Mikel was enthralled along with Taylor and we had a really fun time. The rest of the family would love it too so it's definitely in the plans to save up and take everyone sometime before Kendall leaves on his mission.

Summer finally arrived after lots of fun end of the school year activities. Kaya's class was honored as the best behaved class in art so her teacher did an extra special activity with them where the kids each got to tie die a t-shirt. Kaya loved it!

 We spent more time at the nature center-- with the family, with a few of us, or with other friends. Spencer had a great time with his friend Alex and Alex's sisters and their friends one day exploring a part of the place that we'd never visited before. They designed teepees and then Spencer took me and Kaya to see them another day.

We ventured back to Binder Park Zoo, this time with everyone except Lynnsey who was at girls camp.

The one disappointing part of the trip was the new lion exhibit. We were so excited to finally see the lions but we found that the actual exhibit is enormous but only has one viewing window so if the lions aren't right up front, you can't really see them. If we strained our eyes, we could spot the two females way in the back but really couldn't see much. So that was a bummer. But still a fun day. The boys played around in the African Village trying to balance baskets on their heads and realizing that it's a lot harder than it looks!

The sun came out a little later and then the crowds started coming but by then we were wrapping up our time before the place got too busy. 

Kendall was in the back yard one day and realized that his tiny little pine tree that he planted a few years ago had had a growth spurt so we took some pictures to document it. By the time he gets back from his mission, it will likely be much taller than him.

We got a picture of Lynnsey's pine tree too which seems to be growing around rather than up!

And then Spencer, always the goofball, had me take a picture of him with his "tree" or rather where his tree was before it died. We'll have to make sure we get him a replacement soon.

Have you ever tried having a serious conversation about life with your adult son who insisted on wearing a Darth Vader mask to hide his frustration at you? It's pretty difficult. And pretty funny.

On the 22nd, Kaya turned nine! She had a great day and loved opening all of her fun gifts. 

One of her best gifts was from Kendall who made her a custom Star Wars BB-8 cake. It took him hours of labor but it came out amazingly well and Kaya was thrilled.

Speaking of Kendall and baking--he had a few more orders this month, including a carrot cake for Brother Young who was visiting and a chocolate ganache cheesecake for the Kotas family. Both got rave reviews!

On the 26th, Taylor turned 21 years old! Talk about a crazy realization about my own age. I seriously don't understand how it's even possible that twenty one years has passed since I first became a mom at nearly the same age as Taylor just turned! It was fun to celebrate his birthday with him actually here this year after missing the last two while he was on his mission.

We have Kendall to thank yet again for another delicious creation--this time a blueberry cheesecake. (What on earth are we going to do when Kendall goes on his mission and isn't here to make us this kind of thing?)

I would say probably the majority of people turning 21 these days like to celebrate by partying--usually with alcohol. Taylor's big celebration consisted of visiting another zoo--at his request. He's been dying to get back to Potter Park Zoo in Lansing because we hadn't been since he was about Kaya's age which means Kaya had never been there. So we planned a day to go up and had a great time.

 We got to see several animals that Binder Park Zoo doesn't have like otters, rhinos, meercats, tigers, penguins, a baboon, etc. And they also had lions that we could actually see close up!

The kids loved the aviary where they bought little sticks covered in bird seed that they could hold while little birds would come and perch on the sticks to eat.

There is a red panda at Binder Park zoo but he usually likes to sleep all day. The one at Potter Park was a super active little thing and we had fun watching him run all over the place.

 Kaya loved the peacocks and even made a little friend who followed her around for awhile.

It was a super fun day and a great way to celebrate Taylor's birthday and also a nice last family activity before we took him to Utah to leave him for college.