Well as you all know, we were in the United States for the weekend visiting my daughter and her family. We went to the Zoo
on Saturday and I snapped these pics of some flowers. I thought they were so pretty, and they came out quite clear.

My two granddaughters Lyric and Aria just love the zoo. Here they are with Mommy and Grandpa. Lyric is 4 and Aria is 2. they have been to the Toledo Zoo many of times but still love going. My daughter told me it was my fault that Lyric always asks for "cotton candy" every single time. She said she never asked for it before until I gave her some. Grandpa, was getting bored and was getting tired of walking. Gee, I was the one who could hardly walk because my hip started hurting and my foot has bursitis at the back of the heal, so I kind of hobbled along after a few hours their.
Some of the birds were so colourful. These two were really pretty. I don't know my birds very well, wish I had written down the names, but oh well, you can still admire them.

Here is a couple of pictures of some monkey's, the one with the white on it looked like a skunk.
The gorilla was enjoying a tree branch, and sat there the whole time we were watching it.













Here is one of my favourite animals the Cheetah. Everyone was so surprised that they were actually awake and some were walking around. Usually you see them sleeping because it's so hot, or looking for shade. So it was quite a sight to see them moving and even running about.










Lyric loved pretending she had butterfly wings. Aria didn't want anything to do with it. But overall it was a wonderful day, the kid's had fun, grandpa was pooped lol, and I hobbled along and we managed to get through most of the zoo. When they come up to Canada, we are hopefully going to take them the the Toronto Zoo. Now this zoo is really big. It is best visited in the spring or fall, because it is so open and there isn't a lot of trees where you walk, so it gets really really hot. Don't know quite what I'm going to do about my foot but I'm hoping it will be better by then. I haven't been to the Toronto Zoo since my kids were small, so it'll be like I haven't been there because I'm sure that a lot has changed over the years.

When we arrived home, it was relaxation time, in the evening we still heard lots of fireworks going off and into the night also. The girls were so tired they didn't even want to light off sparklers, so we put them to bed and the went fast asleep.

We took our two dogs with us because my son was going to be away for the weekend also. Now our one dog Shadow is only 3 years old and is a Golden Retriever. We have never taken him on a long car ride before (truck actually) so we didn't know how he was going to be. On short rides he tries to get whatever he can find in the back seat, so we had to make sure there wasn't anything there that he could get at. We made a nice soft bed for the both of them. Now both these dogs are a good size. Shadow is about 59lbs and Talon who is a Blue Heeler Cattle Dog mix, is 85lbs. But they were really good in the truck.

When we got home from the zoo, they were alone for about 3 hours, and we wondered if we would come home to a mess. But shadow never made a mess, and everything was fine.

On the way home to Canada, they were pretty good in the truck. Shadow was getting antsy on the way home. When we were about 45 min. from home he decided that he wanted to sit in the front with me. So he climbed on top of the middle console, and edged his way slowly into my lap. Now this is quite comical because all you could see was this 59lb dog standing on me looking out the window, enjoying himself. Was I enjoying myself? No..he is heavy, and my husband is laughing at this sight. I wish we could have gotten a picture but it was kind of impossible. After about 20 minutes he decided to go back in the back seat much to my relief. Never a dull moment. Used to be kids that this would happened but now its pets. Oh well, it was fun after all.....