November come & GONE!

This is either Dasher or Dancer...
Zoo Crew w/cousins in sleigh for two...
"Oh Good Morning Guys!" Tiny-T & her BIG hat

I just thought I would jump back onto this fun little thing. Holy Cow! A complete month has come and gone! So I will just give you a quick run through of the fun filled events of November.

We took all the little ducklings to the zoo for my birthday. The Tank is obsessed with animals. He eats, breathes, LIVES for animals. To say he was in heaven is the world's biggest understatement of the century. He had a specific list of his must-see animals. They included (in no particular order) elk (reindeer), giraffe, tiger & alligator. We enter the zoo with the Tank telling the ticket taker that he is on his way to see the "reindeer", I kinda whisper "the elk" before she shatters his hopes and dreams and says something completely ridiculous like, "Oh, we don't have any reindeer." She heard my interjection and said, "Oh, wow... that should be really neat." I flash her a relieved "Thank you" smile and we are on our way. The girls were excited too. But one minute of looking at the black bear and they were ready to move on. The Tank, on the other hand, could not bear (no pun intended) to pull himself away from his new friend. We finally find the "reindeer". The Tank leaves me in the dust and runs up the steps to the lookout point. I join him and find that all the elk are being snobs and hanging out in the nearby trees. They must sense the crispness in the air and just instinctively know it is hunting season. I pick him up and point at the only visible part of the elk... it's rump. Well, the Tank was looking for the huge racks and not being able to see them was not convinced that this was his beloved reindeer. He heard them bugle a couple of times and finally decided that was enough of that.
We finally get to the area where the giraffe is supposed to be and there is NO giraffe. Well mommaduck is about to have a complete meltdown in the Africa Safari section of this zoo. I have been listening to every known fact of the giraffe since leaving the elks. My Tank MUST see his giraffe. A zoo keeper comes around the corner and I ask where the giraffe are. He tells us they are getting him ready to go in a crate to the doctors. (Flashes of Madagascar the movie start up in my head.) We find the huge window where he is eating. The Tank was like five inches from the giraffe. The kid went nuts. That made the whole trip for me.
We have been wandering through this zoo for over three hours now. We have been inches from a polar bear (highlight for the Tank as well), watched the live feeding of the penguins and witnessed a cougar eat his dinner (a little brown calf). I thought that might freak the ducklings out... nope, they didn't even flinch. Mommaduck flinched. We go around the final corner and there are two GIANT Siberian Tigers. The Tank was so in awe he was actually speechless and when he spoke, it was only to whisper. He kept telling me that he loved the tigers. They were amazing to see. As we are leaving the Tank checking off all the animals he has seen on his fun filled day comes to the alligator. He quickly informs us that we have missed an animal. I really don't know how we could have. But, he was correct. We did not come across the alligator. I am one wore out mommaduck and so I said it, "Well, Tank... it is just so cold today that the alligator didn't want to come out. He likes hot days, not cold days. Guess, we'll have to come back on a hot day to see him." Daddyduck raised an eyebrow, the Tank was satisfied with his momma's lie... I mean answer. Life was good. We experienced the zoo. As I was seat belting him in he looks at me and says, "When can we go to the Safari again?" (another animal center in our area) "Not until Spring." Tank then starts running through all his plans for the upcoming trip... heaven help me!

This last weekend was Thanksgiving. It has been sooooo cold! Really unseasonably cold, for our area. One of the local malls does a tree lighting festival. We took the ducklings to that. Tiny-T was wearing a hat that was wayyyyy too big for her. I kept having to pull it up so she could see. She was riding on her daddyduck's shoulders and I reached up and pulled it out of her face... she looked at us surprised and yelled, "Oh, good morning guys." It was so funny. My brother and sister-in-law and their crew were with us and they thought that was the funniest event of the night.
Fan-C thought the pretty trees and a sleigh set up for picture taking was "so cool". I've decided that she is growing up way to fast for me. We loaded six kids into a two person sleigh and clicked away. Frosty was walking around and our kiddos all went over and danced with him to the Christmas jazz music being played in the center of the courtyard.
The Tank got to see two reindeer. A local farm brings them to all the Christmas events. He stood by their cage and kept talking to them. One was getting pretty feisty and tired. She didn't want to be there any longer. She yelped out and came right up to the cage leading with her horns and freaked the yogi right out of the Tank. He ran for me and then wouldn't approach the cage any more. We got some great pictures - up at the beginning of this post.
We hope y'all had a great Thanksgiving holiday and are all ready for Christmas... We ARE!