100% Girl

I finally did it.


The temptation was just too much to handle.


I couldn't resist any longer.


I gave in.


I'm embarrassed to admit it,


but...


I bought another bookshelf.


I know it's sad, but its true. I had to. The books were starting to pile up on the floor in front of my crammed full shelves.
I think that what is even sadder(more sad?) about this situation, is that I don't even feel that bad about it. In fact, I am kind of looking forward to watching the shelves fill up. Its sick. I'm addicted to books. I suppose there are a lot of worse things I could be addicted to, but still.

The shelf has been in my trunk since last night. I was just to tired to drag the box up the stairs, but tonight, with the help of my brother, I got it up the stairs. This was no easy task, and I thought the hard part was over, but then I saw the instruction manual. It was normal letter size paper and about thirty pages thick. I could almost feel the impending failure hanging in the air around me. I've never been good at this kind of thing - I'm such a girl! When I put together my last shelf, (I can't believe I'm admitting this) almost all of the nails came through when I nailed on the back. My Grandpa was a carpenter, he would be ashamed.

That was when I saw the notice on the box that read:"No Tools Required." Yes! How lucky can I get? This was my chance.

Everything went fine until one stubborn little plug absolutely refused to go into it's designated hole. I scoffed at the 'no tools required' sign and looked around for something to pound the un-compromising little sucker in with.

And that was when I saw it: my favorite wedge shoe lying on the floor. Who needs hammers? I pounded that plug and a couple of other stubborn plastic things in with that shoe.

My dad once told me that all a shoe like that was good for was a broken ankle. Well, sorry dad, but I think you have been proven wrong.

Not only are my favorite shoes adorable and look great, but they can be very useful.

I didn't think it was possible, but now I love those shoes more than ever. Cinderella can keep her glass slipper, give me a good wedge heel any day.

Wildlife World Zoo

Today I took my little sisters out to the Wildlife World Zoo. Well, I had planned to take just my two little sisters, but ended up with my three sisters, my aunt Jenn, my cousin Angie, my cousin Katie and her husband Robert, and Alyssa, who we consider a part of our family because she has practically lived with us since she was about two, but is actually our neighbor.

Anyway, it was a long, but fun day. The zoo was pretty cool, I liked it better than the Phoenix zoo, but its been a long time since I've been there. The only problem is that this place is forever away. It took about an hour to get there, and looked really lame from the outside, but was actually really neat. It did get pretty hot today, which is so annoying. Seriously, it's March 1st. It should not be this hot already. Its just wrong. I actually got sun-burnt today. Sad, I know. I was the only one - I mean, what kind of an Arizona girl am I? I can't even spend a few hours at the zoo with out frying. wretched fair skin.

So, it was forever away, and really hot, but we had a lot of fun.


First stop was the reptile exhibit. This is Lynnsi (my littlest sis) and Angie(my cousin) in front of the zoos claim to fame: albino alligators. They look huge in the picture on the website, and were a bit of a let down.

We also saw a few snakes like this,
which probably doesn't seem that cool unless you grew up reading books like this:



By far the most disturbing thing about the reptile house(besides the large hissing cockroaches) was this:

I know its hard to see, but that is a huge boa constrictor on that branch and Cassie and Angie are leaning into the cage because there was NO GLASS!!!
Anyone else think it disturbing to put huge reptiles that could easily eat a child Angies size in a cage with no glass? I was slightly horrified.
In order to ease my horror, I tried to get Cassie to climb into the cage and re-enact a classic Harry Potter scene, but to my dismay, she refused.



After the reptile house, we went and looked at the monkeys. Two of the spider monkeys had babies and it was absolutely amazing to watch them swing all over the place while the little babies just held on for dear life.
Sadly, none of my pictures turned out, but lets pretend like I took this one.




Angie was so excited to see her friends Timon and Pumba there, though they weren't quite as cheerful and musically talented as she expected.



Then we saw the rhino. Or, rather, we wanted to see the rhino, but it apparently did not want to see us.

Angies favorite was the flamingos. We seriously couldn't get her to leave.


When we finally drug Angie away from the flamingos, we went over to the petting zoo where there was all kinds of goats and deer. They had a machine where you could buy food for them, but if you went in the gate with food in your hand, you got swarmed.
Annie was the first to go in and got so scared when they all ran at her that she was clutching the food in her hand and yelling, so I had to yell at her from outside the fence to put her hand down and give them the food.






Once she ran out of food, some wandered off, but others stuck around to chew on her shirt and shoelaces until Katie chased them off.















After the petting zoo, we watched an animal experience show. I thought it was kinda lame, but the girls liked it. This is us waiting for it to start:





























I've never been good at that hold-the-camera-out-in-front-of-you trick. And ya, my sisters shirt says "I dig your mom." I tried to convince her it was wrong, but she wouldn't listen.

Next we went to the giraffe feeding station, which was so cool. You had to drop the food on to the giraffes tongue, because if you just held out your hand they would wrap their nasty long tongues around your hand. It was hilarious. More than one child screamed as the long, slimy tongue encircled their hand.


We had a lot of fun, but it was a long, hot day and I've got the burn to prove it. : )

Soooo Frustrating!

I tried to change my blog template last night to one of those way cute ones off a website and I followed all of the directions exactly how it said to and it did not work at all. In fact, not only did it not work, but it deleted everything and I spent like forty five minutes trying to figure out why it would not work and how to get it to go back. I finally got my original title thing back, and my posts, which was a big relief, but lost my list of links and I cannot get it to look the same now. Grrr.