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These are from the zoo last week on Tuesday. As we were leaving after the Komodo dragon feeding my daughter noticed that we could see the sun and the moon in the sky at the same time. We had fun taking pictures in the parking lot. I must admit that it’s fun spending the days with my daughter exploring the world, so much better than searching for how to treat acne or any of those other teen issues I know are coming some day.

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According to the Alaskan Department of Fish and game, while both male and female reindeer grow antlers in the summer each year, male reindeer drop their antlers at the beginning of winter, usually late November to mid December. Female reindeer retain their antlers ’till after they give birth in the spring.

Therefore, according to every historical rendition depicting Santa’s reindeer, every single one of them, from Rudolph to Blitzen had to be a girl.

We should’ve known! Only women would be able to drag a fat man in a red velvet suit all around the world in one night, and NOT GET LOST.

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We love to go to the zoo and really try to get there at least once a week. Being that my daughter is a penguin nut no matter what else we do we always go for the penguin feeding.

For those of you who don’t know, juvenile African Penguins look different from the adults. Their first set of waterproof feathers is black everywhere but the belly, while adults have white up their necks and around their head.. Typically when they are between 18 and 24 months they go through a molt losing all of their feathers at one time and then their new feathers have their adult markings.

Our zoo has two babies Toby, who turned one this month, and Alerian, who is 8 months. A few weeks ago we noticed that Toby had a few feathers missing; but we figured it was something other than molting as she isn’t quite old enough. Surprise, apparently no one told Toby she had to wait and there she was bobbing in the pool with her brand new black and white plumage. She is very cute and now we are excited waiting to see when Alerian will look like when it’s time for his first molt.

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The Camera Critters Meme hosted by Misty Dawn

This is Peak the grizzly bear, he is about a year and a half old and just learning to swim. Peak and his sister Heidi, wandered into a drilling camp in Alaska lost and motherless. They have been living in a rehab center with no swimming facilities, I think Peak likes the change in venue. Heidi on the other hand seems rather disinterested in the whole thing and spends a good portion of her day just lounging in the sand pit.

It turns out that grizzlies have a great sense of smell, and can even smell the people and snacks on the other side of the window on their pool. Peak was as interested in us as we were in him. Grizzlies supposedly don’t like to get their ears wet so he made great efforts to keep his head above water.

Did you know that bears in captivity don’t usually hibernate, the steady supply of food and climate controlled night houses eliminates the need for hibernation. Amazing the things you learn at the zoo.

On a totally un-critter related note I’m pleased to say that I’ve managed to complete two months of NaBloPoMo and am aiming for a third. I’ve also decided for some strange unknown reason to attempt NaNoWriMo for the sixth time, maybe, just maybe this will be the year I finish.

I hope everyone had a great Halloween, we had perfect trick-or-treat weather here and had a blast walking through the neighborhood.

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Well, I decided to do it, merge my blogs that is. I’m just not getting to both of them, and so the homeschool one really suffers. I figure if all my posting is in one place it might be easier to keep up with. I’ve given the Discovery for Life/homeschool posts a header based on the original blog and kept their penguin sigs. Anyone interested in them can search them by selecting Discovery for Life from the sidebar category listing or the archives page. In the future I may revise the system; but for now this works.

I did manage to track down a neat little wp plugin “PostTemplate” by Vincent Prat that creates template posts. I have done most of the work of converting my old posts over to work with the new system and have templates of all my weekly memes. This will cut down on the cut and paste I do each week to carry the meme formatting over. I’m using the free version for now; but if I really like it I will purchase an upgrade to support the developer.

In totally non-blog news, we celebrated my mother’s 60th birthday yesterday, a milestone I wasn’t sure we would reach after the last few years of health issues. Muffin and I made her an apple pie, her favorite, and took her to see the new zoo exhibit. Then we went out to dinner at Texas Roadhouse, cause Muffin thought it would be fun to throw peanut shells on the floor. The food was a little on the salty side, but the service was good and we all left stuffed.

In more real life news, my car is finally totally legal. I have to admit that I was waiting for the title, and then I lost the title, and then the car needed repairs, and it would have just been easier to register it when we first moved. Oh well, it took about 30 minutes of waiting and 5 minutes at the counter and we are good to go. Now all we need is to get the handicap paperwork filled out to make life simpler for Mom.

I’ve probably blathered on enough to bore anyone who stops by to tears, so goodnight, sleep tight, sweet dreams.

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