Friday night/Saturday: Brendan had Cross Country practice after school Friday, so I wasn't able to pick him up for his sleepover until nearly 6pm. I had dinner prepared ahead of time, so when we got here, we ate right away! I was a little stressed about dinner because I had inadvertently cooked the wrong kind of pasta--well, it wasn't wrong exactly--but it was a different kind than I usually cook when I mix it with chicken and broccoli. I was concerned because ... what if Brendan didn't like the looks of it and wouldn't eat it? No worries! He actually had THREE large helpings of it. Whew.
After we ate our dinner, we played a game or two. One of them was Bananagrams. I enjoy playing this with Brendan because he is good with making words, and he seems to enjoy it.
I wasn't sure what movie to suggest for us to watch--I had a few ideas, but none of them were agreeable to Brendan; so we went "surfing" on Prime and bumped into this movie titled "HOLES" (of all things!). We watched the trailer to the movie, and I wasn't sure about it--however, Brendan said he saw the book in the high school library and was curious about it. So we watched it! I can't begin to retell you the story because it was a little bit complicated and at places very "tongue-in-cheek". Sometimes I was downright confused as to what was going on; however, Brendan followed it quite closely and clarified a few things for me which helped.
We slept in until 9am Saturday morning. We ate a breakfast of French toast, played a few games, and then drove over to Deer Tracks, where I finally remembered to take some pictures.
One never knows quite what to expect over at the Budgie place. It was probably 11:30 in the morning before we entered their pavilion, and Brendan barely took TWO steps when he was surrounded by budgies all jumping on his feeding sticks at one time, climbing up his legs, landing on his back ...
I think I counted 7 or 8 birds on Brendan at one time!
Look at this poor budgie (below) with the bald spot on his head! Poor one! Sometimes these guys will get into bad "fights" with each other--I wonder if this is how his hair got pulled out. I sure hope not.
Brendan is so patient and kind with these little birds. I just love to watch his face as he enjoys them.
At one point, the birds got a little out of control ... look at Brendan's reaction!
We also fed goats! Brendan spent about 20 minutes on the bigger of the playgrounds that has so many tunnels and climbing apparatus to explore.
We also fed the EMU, which is ... hysterical ... every single time. I'm not kidding. These guys are so funny and SO aggressive.
Beggars!
They will steal your entire cup of carrots if you get too close, so you have to watch out.
AND, if one of them gets a carrot and doesn't immediately swallow it, another one will come and steal it right out of its mouth!
Both Brendan and I backed WAY up at one point because these guys looked like they wanted to EAT US ...
We visited the Kunekune pigs too ... they are so cute.
As we were walking back towards the Gift shop we passed this goat wearing a red hat. One of the workers told us that he was part of the "staff."
And look what Brendan picked out at the gift shop! I offered to buy him an inexpensive item, and he chose this little moose. We named him "Mumbles". Brendan decided to leave Mumbles at my house instead of bringing him home with him, stating that he would get along good with all of the other animals I have here.
I added to my small 3-D printed animal collection: Do you see Mel? I also bought a budgie (on the R) ...
. . . a sheep, and also a crab (on the far R) to add to the ones I already had. I'm a sucker for these kinds of toys--I can't actually tell you why, except they are SO CUTE.
I already had the squirrel, owl, pigeon, chicken, eagle, and alligator. Yikes.
I surely had a nice few hours with Brendan. Sometimes I worry that he is too old to want to come over anymore. Other times I concern myself with wondering if he will have any fun over here at all. So I did talk to the Lord about all of this (because that's what He wants me to do), and was able to relax and just enjoy this special time with this precious person who is Brendan. Thank you, Lord, for hearing and answering my prayer.
