We Have Our Own Place!!!

I (Angele) recently started managing Orchard Villa Townhomes. Substitute teaching has been really fun and I have learned a lot from all the teachers that I worked with; however, because of the unsteadiness in income and for the chance to finally get our own place, we decided to take this opportunity. We love it! I have actually been able to use a lot of the skills I learned as a teacher while managing: helping people get along, kindly telling tenants to do or not to do things, keeping things picked up and clean, patiently listening to complaints and exuses, and making sure everything runs smoothly. Some days are really hectic, but I'm getting the hang of it. The best part is that I can stay at home with Bryson! It is fun to be able to do things with him in the morning. The hard part is trying to get things done in the afternoon when he decides not to take a good nap. All in all, I think this is going to work out.

Oh, What the Heck. Take the Box!

So our friends and family are getting really frustrated with us because we don't post very often. For this reason, I am learning to do this. Maybe I'll be able to put a few things on while I'm suppose to be working.

If you were wondering what Bryson's favorite thing to do is, it is eating. The first thing he asks for when he wakes up is food. Then immediately after he has eaten breakfast, he wants a snack to eat while he watches Word World ("Wo Wo") and Super Why ("Why Why"). He decided to stop waiting for Mom and Dad (and Grandma Pauline) to get him snacks and did it himself. Fortunately in our new apartment the snacks are not so accessible.

Jumper

Yesterday we made this set up for Bryson. He must have jumped for 20 minutes straight.

Huge Bomber

This is actually from a few months ago, but I'm finally getting around to posting it. This thing was flying over the neighborhood all weekend. It was pretty cool to see it almost crashing into trees and powerlines. Did I say cool? I meant cool and scary.

Mac and Cheese

These are some old pictures just to prove that, yes, we do let Bryson get dirty from time to time.

Wild Animal Park

So today we went to the Wild Animal Park and had an absolute blast. Everything seemed to work in our favor.

First we went to the petting zoo. They have deer, antelope and gazelles. The smaller gazelles ignored Bryson because he didn't have food so he walked right up to the biggest deer in the place and literally said, "Hi!" Then a nice woman let Bryson have some of her deer food and it ate right out of Bryson's hand. It wasn't crowded with kids and all the animals were really nice so our timing was perfect.




Next we walked down to the new Lion Camp exhibit, which lets you get pretty close to the lions via tall glass panels. They have 7 cubs with their mothers. The cubs were playing around and jumping on each other. We were laughing and having a great time. One of the mothers looked at us from a distance and slowly walked up to the glass panel we were at. The glass goes from the floor to the top of the structure and looks almost like an open door, with glass where the whole should be. She came right up to the glass and looked us over, just to make sure we knew who was in charge. Bryson was a little freaked out at first, but then he calmed down and the lion went back to play with her cubs. Couldn't have timed that better. This is a shot of two cubs chillin' on top of a car in their area.



Next we walked along the trail that overlooks the open plains. The giraffes were on the other side of the park so we took a few pictures with this fake one.



But then some keepers came out and hoisted some food on wooded poles and the giraffes came from everywhere to right in front of us. Perfect timing once again.



We saw lots more, including a mother and baby elephant, lots of birds and gorillas. It was lots of fun and Bryson fell asleep on our way out. Perfect timing.

Lake Murray

Angele and I decided we want to exercise a bit more so we committed to at least walking around Lake Murray every Saturday. The round trip is 10K so it should do us some good.

You can't walk around the whole lake because of a water treatment plant so you have to walk up to gate, turn around and walk back. On the gate is a sign that says your lap doesn't count unless you touch the sign. Bryson and Angele touched it. I forgot. Guess that means I was never there.


After touching the sign we let Bryson stretch his legs and feed the ducks.

On the way back we found a stick and let Bryson hold it. After carrying it like a scepter, he discovered the wonder of dragging it as we walked.


Eventually he got tired of the stroller and got out and walked with us. He did great. We all walked, ran and jumped for quite some time.


When he slowed down we put him back in the stoller and he very quickly fell asleep and slept for the rest of the walk. It was a good day.