A day with the animals

This morning we got up early and went to an Open House that the MU Vet school was hosting. Avery and I went last year with Sunny and Reagan, but it was cold and yucky out. We told Avery it was a surprise, because she loves surprises. We told her for two days about this ‘surprise’ and how cool it was going to be. Before we got to the Vet school we pulled into the bank. Avery said “Awww… this is my surprise?” She was so disappointed! We assured her it wasn’t, and she was happy especially since she knows Papi always brings her a sucker from the bank. By 10 we were at the vet school and made our way from the parking lot into one of the buildings. Avery and Asher both walked up about 100 steps just like little troopers. Inside the first building there were a few dogs that had been rescued along with a cat. Avery didn’t like the black dog (she has a thing about black dogs), but pet the white one. Asher liked the small dogs but didn’t like the big one. When it was all said and done they had each pet one or two, as well as a cat. Then we moved onto the snakes. They really had a nice little collection which included a blue-tongued skink and a 12’ albino boa constrictor. It was funny listening to them tell me all about the animals I already knew so much about! The kids thought the snakes were cool, and Jamie laughed at me when I whipped out the hand cleansing gel. Salmonella-free is the way to be, I always say. Then we went outside and watched trick dogs perform. There were several that were jumping really high and catching Frisbees and doing really cool tricks. It was a bit chilly and windy out, so the kids didn’t last for more than a few dogs before we moved on. Perfect. We saw Truman the Tiger, and Avery thought it was funny that he doesn’t talk. Our next stop was the feed animals. The kids saw little piglets, a couple cows (everyone thought it was funny when Asher stuck his head through the bars and kept yelling “Big Big!” They each pet a horse, a cow, a baby chicken, a goat, and got to milk a cow. I’d never milked a cow before so I tried it (it felt weirdly familiar). On our way out we saw Truman again and Avery gave him a dandelion. He said thank you in sign language, which she got a kick out of because she understood it.