Father's Day Weekend

What better way to celebrate Father's Day than to visit a pack of baboons? Well, really the weekend ended up that way because we decided to go to the Preston Temple on Friday after work. We spent the night (although with very little sleep thanks to one of our kiddos), one of us attending Friday night and the other Saturday morning.

The gardens around the temple were really spectacular and the children had fun running around. Clara especially enjoyed pushing Jonas around in his stroller.

Rather than get back in the car and drive straight home, we decided to go to Knowsley's Safari Park. It includes a 5 mile safari drive and then some amusement park rides, bug house and a seal show. We saw many animals like these tired lions

and this wallaby

But nothing could have prepared us for these baboons!! You could choose to drive into the baboon enclosure of simply watch from outside the gate while keeping your car nice and safe and watching the other cars get completely mauled. Naturally we wanted to get as up-close as we could. It was CRAZY!!! They were climbing all over our car. Devin swore he'd never touch our side mirror again. (I think due to a view only he was privy to...thankfully!)

Eating lemons and smearing them on the windows.

Dancing and doing who knows what on our roof. Playing with the antennae and windshield wipers to the point I was sure they would never be the same again. Then there was the reaction from our poor kids. It started out like this...

...and quickly turned into this...

They must have thought we had lost our minds placing them in such danger - at least that is what the look on their faces says to me.

This was certainly an experience I'll never forget.

Afterwards we let the kids pick two rides to go on.

Jonas couldn't decide on his second ride and made us walk around the park three times while saying no to each ride. Finally we gave his second ticket to Clara who chose the carrousel. Then of course he decided that he wanted to be riding as well and I had the pleasure of holding a screaming Jonas while Clara enjoyed her ride.

I also saw another first on our drive home. Sheep in the median of a freeway. I've never seen sheep (or any animal) that live in between speeding vehicles. Only in England?

The next day Clara & I woke up and made some breakfast for Devin. After church we had fun playing as a family and eating a yummy dinner. I especially enjoyed listening in to Clara playing school with her stuffed animals (and Jonas) as she taught them about Father's Day (but not always in a very nice voice) - it made me smile.

It was a relaxing day and I hope Devin realizes how much we all love him.