Wow! We decided to go to the zoo today. Yes, we did sluff church and in BriAnna's observation, it bit us in the bum! We all shoehorned ourselves into the van under protest from BriAnna. Jaxon persuaded her to go along with the plan. We made our way slowly through the zoo without incident, having quite a pleasant time for the most part. Bradley pushed Grams in a wheelchair so that she would not get tired and could enjoy the day. We brought lots of water and snacks so the kids stayed happy. And, we left the playground for last so they all had something to look forward to - the little ones could play and the big ones could sit upon their hinies for a while. The playground, however, proved to be the 'undoing' of the day. Jaxon turned the opposite direction getting off the slide and became disoriented. He started to cry and a women got to him before any of us. She assumed he was lost and took him to the front gate guest services. Kim stayed with the other boys and the rest of us split into different routes to retrieve him. By the time that Shayne reached him, Jaxon was hysterical and the rest of us were emotional messes. Then when we met back up, Leo had wandered off into the prairie dog cave oblivious to anything going on. That was two-too many scares for all of us. Dad took Leo by the arm and declared (loud enough for the entire zoo to hear) that Leo would not go anywhere without a leash from now on.
Then the drama just got worse...
Some busy-body piece of ... decide that he would save Leo from dad and followed them towards the gate. Shayne heard him and went to intercept. The guy started making loud accusations at dad traumatizing Leo and angering dad. Shayne got his attention by knocking his hat off his head. By that time, Grams had caught up and stepped in between them trying to calm Leo, who by this time was so scared of this want-a-be do-gooder. The man soon turned around and sputtered back to his group passing by all the rest of us. Leo cried all the way to the car. It took the whole ride home for everyone to calm down. What a way to end a great day!