The Best Day... Ever!

Guess who came to the zoo... Yep, the ultimate explorer and hero to Maggie - Dora the Explorer!

After waiting in line for an hour (poor Dora needed a 20-minute break every so often to cool off), we finally got to meet her. Maggie was so excited, and she waited in line so patiently. Ethan even did okay waiting, with the help of Goldfish crackers and juice.

Getting a hug from Dora.

Group picture - feeling the love!

Afterwards, we went on some rides - the zoo passed out free ride passes to appease the families who had waited so long for Dora. I wasn't too sure on how they would do, but they LOVED it! I think I have some future adrenaline junkies here... And yes, that is poor John stuck in the caboose of the train.

Sorry if I offend anyone, but...

I lifted this from my friend Sugarmama - credit goes to her for this.

I'm a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight.....

* If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're 'exotic, different.'

* Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, a quintessential American story.

* If your name is Barack, you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.

* Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, and you're a maverick.

* Graduate from Harvard law School, and you are unstable.

* Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well grounded.

* If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black president of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a constitutional law professor, spend 8 years as a state senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state senate's Health and Human Services Committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs Committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.

* If your total resume is: local weather girl , 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, and 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive.

* If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.

* If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.

* If you advocate teaching responsible, age-appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control and educating kindergarteners on how not to be the victim of a sexual predator, you are eroding the fiber of society.

* If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence-only sex education in your state's school system, with no other option, while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you're very responsible.

* If your wife is a Harvard graduate laywer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent America's.

* If you're husband is nicknamed 'First Dude', with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.

OK, much clearer now.

Scenes from a Beach