Mr. Zuckerman and Wilbur come to visit

Zookeepers Dad and brother, Mr. Zuckerman and Wilbur (Hey, I asked them what they wanted their Alias to be and that's what he said. :) ) came to visit us for a while. We are so happy they came. The critters love having Mr. Zuckerman and Wilbur here because they always have something fun to do. Of course they love his world famous pancakes, which we had for breakfast bright and early Monday morning.

The critters love to play with Wilbur's chair ... his motorized wheelchair. They all take turns buzzing around the barnyard in it. That thing is pretty powerful... you should see the ruts it left in my wet lawn! :)

Mr. Zuckerman also brings his fun toys... a portable DVD player. Monday morning he made a bed in the back of the truck and let the critters watch a movie back there. They thought they were at the drive in theater!

It took a while for Lemur to warm up to Mr. Zuckerman, but he finally let him hold him and boy was Mr. Zuckerman happy! Now they are best buds!

Going to see Dad at work

Zookeeper got done with work a bit early on Monday, so we decided to drive out and see Hunter, who was doing a well test. Hunter took Lemur out to see the water...

Bee and Penguin were good to stay out of the water, but Lemur had other plans.

I think Hunter intended to just let Lemur splash around a bit, but pretty soon Lemur was all but right in the water.

Lemur was having the time of his life! He would hit the water with his hands, sending it spraying all over himself and anyone standing close by. Hunter ended up almost as wet as Lemur. Three or four times Lemur stuck his head in the water!!! This stuff was coming out really fast too! I can't remember how many gallons a minute Hunter said it was, but it was tons. You should have seen the size of puddle it was making. Hunter told Mr. Zuckerman that it was just a little puddle... Mr. Zuckerman said he'd hate to see one of Hunters BIG puddles... this one almost swallowed up the truck when we drove through it.

This little critter was saturated by the time he was done. Luckily, Mr. Zuckerman had a towel in his truck. We stripped down Lemur, wrapped him in a towel and put on some clean clothes. He was happy to get in the truck with his blankey and warm up. I think Lemur would have stayed the rest of the day with Hunter and helped him work if I would have let him. We headed back to the farm to make home made ice cream for Family Barn Evening. The girls watched a movie on the way in Mr. Zuckerman's truck... sure is fun being spoiled by Grandpa Zuckerman! :)

Going to see Dad at work

Hanging' out at Horse's Stable

We went over to Horse and Mare's house after we sanded the piano. Mare made a yummy, yum dinner and after we stuffed ourselves we played with the babies.

Lemur thought Colt was pretty cool... until I started to hold him, then he got jealous!

Mare and little Colt. He is almost 3 months old now. Dang he's cute.

Playing catch with...

LEMUR! The rules are, no playing catch with balls in the house, but no one ever said anything about not playing catch with THE BABY!!!
Hunter and Horse had a little too much fun playing catch with Lemur, but, you know our little adrenaline rush baby, he loved it!

Lemur was laughing his head off, he loved every toss!

I trusted Hunter and Horse, but when they started talking about... "let's see if we can flip him" I had to intercept the baby and run for the other end zone.

Piano Project... STILL!

Remember when I started this piano project? It was a year ago. A lady gave me this piano. It was yellow. It was very ugly. Anyway, I stripped the paint off over the last year and yesterday Hunter, Horse and I started sanding it. I had taken the yellow paint off, but there was still the mahogany colored stain on it.

The natural wood is really light. I haven't decided yet if I am going to stain it a darker color, or leave it light. There are 6 pieces that are intricately carved that are going to be next to impossibly to sand, so Horse suggested that I leave them dark and the rest of the piano light. It would look pretty cool. Hunter took the front all apart for me and we got most of it sanded with 150 grit sand paper. Now I just have to go over it all with 250 or 300 grit a few times before I can stain it. It is parked in a shop over by Horses house, 45 minutes away, so I don't get over there very often to work on it. I'm excited to have it done and when we buy a new home, we'll get to move it in.

Playing in the waterin' Hole

We had another fun afteroon at our favorite waterin' hole. Lemur spend most of the time playing in the sand this time. He did like the water though and splashed and played in there for a while.

These four critters (Monkey, Penguin, Steelhead and Bee) played on the yellow buoy most of the time. Look, Penguin can walk on water!

The world looks pretty cool from this angle. You should try it some time!

Porcupine's dryin' off before heading home.

Busy Critters

I have been super busy lately (who hasn't) and just haven't taken many pictures, but here's what we've been up to: Bee, Martin and Monkey got back from their Michigan/Ohio/New York trip. They had a great time and did some fun things including going to Cedar Point, Church History sites in Kirtland, and Palmyra, and lots of fun on the lake water skiing, tubing and swimming. Steelhead, Penguin, and Porcupine kept busy here on the farm helping with Lemur, swimming at our favorite waterin' hole and playing with friends. Steelhead went to scout camp and had a great time. Lemur kept everyone busy tearing the barn apart and doing funny things to make us all laugh. When Bee, Martin and Monkey got home, we went to an LDS Temple Open House in our area. It was very cool and the kids loved it. That Sunday Martin packed up and went to Scout Camp for a week.

Leapin' Lemurs!!!

On Saturday we picked up Horse and went for one of Hunters "drives." We first went to a cabin where Zookeepers family is going to have a family reunion in August. Then we decided to show Horse some of the country. We drove up to a hot springs, found where they were logging, watched the log loader work for a while, then went down the mountain and decided to drive up to where Hunter grew up! We ended up there around 5:30. After seeing his old house, the fish hatchery and the river, we stopped for dinner... Prime Rib... yum! Then we gassed up (ouch!) and headed home. Lemur was really tired of being in the car by this time, so we stopped at a camp ground and went for a walk. We were walking on a trail and Lemur decided it was too flat and boring, so he walked right off the edge. He had been trying several times before but we wouldn't let him, and we finally decided to let him and see what he thought. He loved it! It was super steep and he turned around and went sliding down on all fours. He giggled and laughed all the way down.
Hunter went down below to catch him, and he would pick Lemur up and take him back up to the trail. Hunter set Lemur down on the far side of the trail and Lemur would run (as best he can) and go diving off the edge, roll, turn and slide backwards down the steep mountain.

Lemur was giggling and laughing and shrieking with joy, he couldn't get enough of it! We decided we are in big trouble with this thrill seeker.

Once Lemur didn't quite make the turn around and he did more of a face plant. He yelled because he had dirt in his eyes (and hair, and nose, and mouth, and ears and...) but got even more mad when Hunter picked him up. He wanted down and he wanted to go leaping off the edge again. We let him do it several times before we drug him down the trail and cleaned him up. It was so steep Hunter had a hard time making it up the hill while holding Lemur.

Sorry... kinda gross picture, but I had to show you how dirty he was. He was having some good "clean?" fun!

He was not happy about getting cleaned up either! We got home from our "drive" around midnight. I don't know if Horse will ever go for a drive with us again. I think we left around 9:30 in the morning... :)

Look at Lemur

Lemur has learned to push a stool over to a counter and climb up on it. He wanted to help Penguin do the dishes. He had a blast splashing in the bubbles! Lemur's belly got clean, but I'm not sure about the dishes.

Lemur found a great hiding place (not really). He climbed in by himself, but needed Hunters help getting out.

I was working one day and Lemur kept himself busy by emptying a shelf of canned goods. He made a bunch of trips from the kitchen over to my desk packing a can and putting it up on the desk. Then he'd head back to the kitchen for more. It was all good and fun until he dropped one on his toe... ouch!

My fish was "THIS BIG!!!!"

Steelhead went Salmon fishing with Uncle Salmon last weekend. Steelhead doesn't need to embellish this fish story, the Chinook was almost as big as he was! (it was "about 33 inches") We ate it for dinner Sunday night, and BOY was it GOOD!! Congrats Steelhead... your first salmon catch! (do you think he's a little excited about this!!?!!!) Thank you Uncle Salmon for taking him fishing!

Takin' a dip

We should have named Lemur frog or fish... he could live in the water!!!

We went to a nearby waterin' hole to cool off on Saturday afternoon. Everyone got in the water... (even the Zoo keeper... hope everyone had their sunglasses on...) Lemur LOVED the water, as usual. It was shallow on the edges and really gradually got deeper. He crawled all along the shore splashing and playing in the water. Sometimes he would try to lay his head down on the water. Then he'd head out across the sand to check out other critters sand castles and inflatables toys. He was a tired boy at the end of the day!

The critters had fun when the Hunter threw them into the air... splash down!

Launching Penguin... blast off!

Penguin loved the slide. I think she could have gone down all day without getting tired.

Porcupine splashes down!

Happy 4th of July!

Happy Independence Day! We live in a wonderful country. It is our duty to make it better too, so everyone do your part!

Some of us went to a demolition derby on the 4th. Steelhead went Salmon fishing with Uncle Salmon. Martin, Bee and Monkey are in Michigan/New York for two weeks. The rest of us went out to a little po-dunk town that had a red neck demolition derby. It was super duper hot and we drank lots of lemonade to keep cool. Sitting in the heat was worth it though, the derby was a blast!

Being at the demolition derby was a "smashing" good time! It was super loud. This was the hardest hitting derby I have ever been to. It was a really big arena and the drivers were not afraid to go fast before trying to pulverize each other into itty bitty scrap metal.

After the derby a tank came out and ran over two of the cars. Boy did it smash them flat!! The critters thought it was "very cool!" After the D.D. we hung out, ate snow cones, listened to Live Music and watched fire works... it was a really nice 4th of July.