The Z-O-O

I'm slowly losing grip on an age-old parenting tool -- the spelling out of words you don't want your kids to hear. Now that Ava is getting the hang of reading and sounding out words, I've found that she often foils my attempts at spelling out words almost as soon as the letters escape my mouth.


Not too long ago my friend Brittney and I decided to surprise the kids with a trip to the Z-O-O. Or so I thought. Not five minutes after we got in the car Ava says, "I know where we're going." Playing along I asked, "where?" "I'll give you a hint," she says "It has animals and a baby elephant." Shocked, I question how on earth she figured it out. Turns out, she had heard me mention to Andy we were going to the Z-O-O. Using her spelling skills, she quickly figured it out. My emotions were mixed. On one hand, I was bummed she had ruined the surprise, but on the other hand, I was so excited she had figured out the word simply from hearing it spelled out. Regardless, we had a fun day at the Z-O-O.

A.J., Ava and Jax

Zuri, the baby elephant. We saw her last fall just a few weeks after she was born, so the kids were extra excited to see how much she'd grown.

Ava had to take a picture with the ring-tailed lemurs because they're in the movie "Madagascar"

The mancub and mama

All of us. Brittney is VERY pregnant but was such a trooper walking around the zoo.

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