Not Too Sick to go to the Zoo

For the past few years, we have made it a point to go to the Houston Zoo for Christmas.  This year, our Houston itinerary didn't leave room for a zoo trip, so I made sure we went to a zoo the week after Christmas.

Because we waited, we got to go with the Robinsons, which was a nice bonus.

 The kids had such a great time together and Helen and Scott and Jeremy and I always enjoy the time spent together.

The only down side was that Sydney was on the edge of sick today.  She had a little tummy trouble last night, but we didn't think anything of it.  Then this morning, as we were driving into San Antonio, she said her tummy hurt and she thought she was hungry.  It was a reasonable assumption since she had not had breakfast, so we stopped and got her a couple of biscuits.  After the biscuits, she said her tummy hurt worse, but by then we were driving through downtown San Antonio, committed to going to the zoo.

Knowing her and her iron stomach, I wasn't worried about her getting really and truly sick.  It did feel a little wrong to have her out and about with a stomach bug, but we were in a nice outdoor space, not like going to the Children's Museum and touching all of the toys there, for example.  In the end, Sydney wanted to be at the zoo and we felt like that was sign enough that she wasn't that sick.

She and Andrew and John got to see lots of animals.

But in between the exhibits and these bursts of energy, she would want to go sit and take it easy.

Overall, though, as the day progressed, she was feeling better and honestly, by the time we got home in the evening, she was her normal self.  I was glad we stuck it out.

The kids enjoyed feeding the fish and the got a real treat when the keepers were feeding the monkeys and we got to see the monkey family searching for their food after the keeper left.

One of our favorite parts of the San Antonio Zoo experience continues to be the Mold-O-Rama, though.  It's such a random and odd souvenir.  The kids made a seal, a koala and an alligator.

I got to share the Mold-O-Rama experience with the Robinsons, who unlike most of my friends, did not grow up in Texas and therefore had no remnant childhood memories associated with the machines and just appreciated them for the wacky-world-of-the-future-from-1950-thing-a-jigs that they are.

Each kid made one, but some fine trading on the part of Andrew at the end of the zoo trip made it such that no child actually took home the animal he/she made.  I got to show off my completely useless, and yet somehow priceless skill set that includes being able to time the release of the molded figure to get out while it is still soft enough for fine tuning the edges.

Mostly, it was just a good day.  Helen and I get to do things like this with the kids fairly often, but to have both dads with us was the real treat.

Well, that and the fact that once again we stopped at Joseph's Storehouse on the way out and everyone got delicious sandwiches and I celebrated December 30th by announcing that I was back on my diet after the New Year and had a quarter piece each of chocolate fudge and Italian wedding cakes.  Yum!

What a delicious end to a wonderful day!

And the best part was that Sydney's tummy felt 100% better after chocolate cake.  Of course it did.