Time with friends

Unfortunately I have had more computer problems and have had to send my computer away (AGAIN) to be repaired.  Thus I am way behind in blog posts.  This one is from early July but wanted to post it anyways since it was a special time for us.

Our friends Bev and Ryan and their kids Evelyn and Ethan came for a visit for a few days.  It was very special since we had not seen them in over 3 years as they had moved to northern Alberta and unfortunately we have not had the opportunity to get together until now.  Ryan had some professional development training north of the city and so they took the opportunity to extend their trip and visit us.  They had not yet met Maya and we had not met their son, Ethan, so it was a great reunion.  The kids played well together and we took the opportunity to do some fun things.

And what better place to go with young kids than the Calgary zoo?  It was only our second time at the zoo with Maya.  She was not very interested the first time as she was still quite young but she was much more engaged on this trip and it was fun to watch her point out the animals to us. However, the park within the zoo was definitely her favorite part.  The slides, in particular, were the best but she preferred to try and climb up from the bottom which made it difficult for any other kids to go down.  It was hard to pry her from the slides to visit the rest of the zoo but eventually we did and had a great day.

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Some noteworth animals that we saw this time were the koalas, which are new to the zoo and were just so cute I wanted to hug them.  We also saw some different looking monkeys with long fluffly tails though I can't remember their names and, of course, the giraffes which are always one of my favorites.  On this occasion, the giraffes were very active reaching up with their long necks to eat leaves from high in the tree tops.  At one point, somehow, one of the (someone else's) kids broke off a tree branch covered in leaves and held it up for the giraffe.  And to everyone's amazment, the giraffe bent down, down, down and ate the leaves off the branch in the kids' hand.  It was cool and a little scary at the same time.  I'm not sure I would have let Maya try that.  Afterwards, Maya was pretty tuckered out but it was a great day!

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The next day we decided to go to Butterfield Acres.  It's a large farm not far from our house that has a petting zoo for kids.  It is exceptionally well run and they have many different kinds of farm animals from chickens and  goats to horses and cows as well as emus, rabbits, a donkey, and a very big pig...just to name a few.  This was, by far, one of my favorite places to take Maya and I think Evelyn and Ethan really enjoyed themselves too.  The farm is incredibly well maintained and the animals are very friendly.  Maya was very interested in the animals and as we told her the names, I think she recognized many of them from her books.  It was such a good experience for her to see and touch them up close and start to relate some abstract objects from her books to real-life concrete animals.  It is such a priviledge watching her learn and grow.  It was a great experience and such a fun day and I'm glad we got to do it together with the kids.

Maya checking out the goats.

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Evelyn and Ethan with the donkey

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Daddy's arms were never far away....always protecting his baby girl.  Although I think Maya wanted to get away to explore.  Big hugs for the sheep.

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I love this picture.  Maya just loved the baby goats.  They were just her size and so cute.  They were my favorites too.

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Maya with the horses.

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This is the only picture we got of all the kids together.  At least it's a cute one.

We had a great weekend with our friends and I know Maya really enjoyed spending time with some her new little friends.  Ethan seemed to be very interested in making sure Maya was okay and always wanted to know where she was and Evelyn was a very good little helper.  They are both great kids which is not surprising as their parents are pretty great too.  We are thankful for such wonderful friends and look forward to another visit hopefully in the near future.