This week has been Bible school at church.  Lindee and I were in charge of snacks every night, which really was a lot of fun.  Here is June and part of her family group when they came in for their turn at our station.

Mason during the closing session. He and June both loved Bible school this week.

Sunday at the zoo we got up and headed out to see the animal exhibits that we didn’t have time to see the day before.  I always love the black swans

And hands down one of our favorite animals was the orangutans. This is Lana, who was out for the last day before she went into seclusion until her baby is born in a couple of weeks – how very Victorian of her. Their facial expressions just killed me. This was definitely another exhibit where I could’ve stayed for hours.

Definitely one of the highlights of our zoo visit was when Jeni brought animals in for us to spend time with, up close and personal.  This kinkajou was my personal favorite of the evening.

I was less excited about the snake, but it actually lived in a cage in the room where we were sleeping, so it was sort of cool to learn more about it. It’s actually not an albino, but a leusistic black rat snake. Interesting.

The red panda was one of my favorites that we saw that day.  She had just had cubs, and hadn’t brought them out of the den yet, so the zookeeper thought we might not see her at all – but then she did come and pay us a quick visit.  So cute.

One of our activities for the evening was identifying a group of animal artifacts that were on display in the room. It really was hard – I’m not sure I knew a single one of them. This elephant tusk was WAY heavier than we’d thought it was going to be. Here is June checking it out with Ms Renee, one of the mothers who went with us (and who has incidentally taught Clara for the past two years, and will be teaching her again this year. :-))

Saturday our Tween group at church – 4th, 5th, & 6th graders – loaded up and left about 2 PM for the Greenville Zoo, for an over night behind-the-scenes adventure.  We got there and carried our sleeping bags & such up to the very top of the hill, to the education center where we would be spending the night.  Then after a meeting where everyone got the rules, we went behind the scenes to visit the lions, which was very cool.  And as we were standing there looking at and learning about the lions, we looked over, and there was this giraffe in the building next door, checking us out.  It was sooooo funny.

I got this picture later on in the evening, when we were meeting the animals. Jeni, our tour guide, brought in several animals for the kids to pet and get up close & personal with. It was so much fun and so exciting that I got virtually no pictures of that happening, but I did get this picture of Clara, and most of Adam, hanging on every word she had to say. The kids really were good the whole time – what a great experience.

I accidentally skipped this entry, mostly because our 4th of July was so low key – we really did absolutely nothing!  That morning Lindee had to work, though, and Jackson was playing golf, so Clara came over to spend a few hours.  She was proud to have finished up her clothespin trivet – and proudly painted it in red, white, and blue to celebrate the holiday!

I have truly wanted to go to Forty Acre Rock since the first time I heard of it, when Lindee visited there with a biology class when she was at Winthrop. This morning Jeff & I stopped and picked up Charlie and Adam early so we could get out there before it got too hot. It really was pretty crazy looking – sort of like walking on the moon. Wow.

It’s not a state park, but a Heritage Preserve, so we spent some time hiking – including the one that took us to the rock outcroppings. It was a pretty strenuous hike – but so cool when we got there!

Yesterday while the kids were all here we made Fourth of July Dessert Cheeseballs.  They were delicious, and the kids had a good time.  Here they are dividing up the vanilla wafers and animal crackers to bag up for every family to take home 🙂