Day 181 / 16 To Go: Fun at the zoo

Posted by: Cris

The downside of living in what still must qualify as "rural Oahu" is evident tonight in my inability to post the super cute videos of Nova singing and Juneau demonstrating her quickly developing reading skills due to internet problems out here in the boonies. I managed to get some pictures uploaded so for tonight, those will have to do. Isn't the point of having the Roadrunner as your mascot and namesake the idea that you too are fast in your data speed? I guess not. Even grandma has taken to taking pictures of the ocean outside our window.

The girls and grandma headed out to the zoo this morning.

It had been quite awhile since the girls have been to the zoo so they had a great time.

For some reason they were particularly captivated by the wagon and milk can in the kids petting zoo area.

They were entertained here for at least 20 minutes.

And of course, the fact that is says "dress up and play" on the wall means Nova was happy to follow these instructions.

And of course they spent their fair share of time at the playground in the middle of the zoo. They can go play on a jungle gym ANYWHERE but still, everytime they go to the zoo they end up having to be pried away from the playground.

As luck would have it, I was able to get away from work around 1:00 which meant I could meet the gang for lunch just down the street from the zoo at Burger's on the Edge.

The girls were excited to show me the videos from the day, especially of Nova singing (hopefully stay tuned tomorrow).

By the time we finished eating, Nova was ready to cuddle up to daddy and take a nap.

While the girls slept I went out to tackle some work on the part of the fence I'd been avoiding...patching up the part down the hillside. As hard as it is to believe, working on a project on a 45 degree angle makes it a little harder and a little slower to progress than under normal circumstances.

On a serious note, I'm sure days like this are particularly hard to everyone out there who has a loved one deployed. An Afghani pilot got into an argument at the Kabul airport with U.S. military members who were part of a training team and he opened fire, killing 9 U.S. servicemen making today the deadliest single day in Afghanistan for U.S. troops since 2006. Obviously, when compared to the types of days that were common in past wars, this is a minutely small number...but I know that is little solace to the 9 families who lost their deployed loved one today. These days always make me anxious but especially today since Emilie is only a few days from leaving Jalalabad and then a couple more days before she should be out of Bagram and out of Afghanistan. Even if it will still be a few days more until we are together, her getting out of Afghanistan can't come soon enough.