First Post of the New Year

And January is almost over.  We’ve been busy, but for the most part really boring stuff.  I’ll try to give you some of the highlights to bring you up to date with the Huber’s and Pearl.

Yes Pearl is still with us.  Some days are better than other, but we don’t think she’s in a lot of pain.  So we’re continuing to baby her here in Laguna Woods, where she has no steps and nice green grass.

We spent New Years Eve day with Matt, Suzanne, and William Jaxson.  He’s growing so fast.  Here’s a picture from the day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jeni was still visiting from AZ, so she got into the action.  That evening we went to Temecula to celebrate our niece Katie’s 30th birthday.  I can’t remember when I was thirty it was so long ago.

Jeni headed back to AZ, and we settled into a new routine in the Village.  I’m still working at the computer workshop and the Photography lab, but I’ve also added teaching a basic Windows 7 class for 5 weeks.  Linda is still beading twice a week, but she has also volunteered to do income taxes under the AARP umbrella for senior citizens here in the village.

We both celebrated our birthdays during January, and on the weekend Jeni came over to be with us.  Matt, William Jaxson, and Jeni surprised us on Friday, 1/15, here at our place.  The birthday present they shared with us was a special professional photo of Pearl, alone and with us.  She came to our condo with lights, backgrounds and cameras and took a lot of pictures.  We’re anxious to see how they came out.

On Saturday we all headed to San Diego to go to the Zoo.  Linda and I are very fond of zoos, and we hadn’t been to the San Diego Zoo in 30 years.  Here we are getting ready to tour around.

 

This is the first big outing for us with William Jaxson and we had a ball.  And he was the best behave 3 month old in the entire zoo.

They have a lot of new exhibits which was very exciting.  Here’s the Panda’s:

The new Polar Bear exhibit:

Here are some good shots of the lions:

And the Koalas.  This was just before the zoo closed, so the lighting isn’t that good, but they’re so cute:

Here’s the last picture of the day:

If you want to look at all of the pictures, they’re on our Picasa Web albums.  Click on the links:

http://picasaweb.google.com/winequest/NewYearSEveWithJaxson#

http://picasaweb.google.com/winequest/SanDiegoZoo#

And all of our pictures:

http://picasaweb.google.com/home?hl=en&tab=wq

So now you know what’s been going on.  I promise to post at least once a week to keep you up to date.

Out of Africa-In Arizona

Since we enjoy zoos and animal parks (except for Sea World-ask Linda about details) we decided to visit the local attraction, Out of Africa Wildlife Park.

Bob & Maggie drove, and as we entered we know it was going to be a different experience.  It was built on two different levels, the African Plains, and the upper level where all of the predators were displayed.  We took a bus ride around the lower level to view the different animals.  There were a lot of different antelopes.

And we got to feed the Giraffes.Linda even got a sloppy kiss, but I wasn’t able to get a picture, darn.

After the bus ride we took a tram to the upper level, where we got to see the big cats.

It was hard to get good pictures because of all of the chain link fences.  But then again, we didn’t want to face any of the cats without the fence.

There was a show in the afternoon call Tiger Splash.  They had a large swimming pool, and the trainers interacted with the tigers in the pool and on the grass around the pool.  It was amazing that the tigers would try the same actions on the trainers and not harm them, but on balls and inflatable toys they were very  aggressive with all of the teeth bared. If you look closely you can see the trainers legs under the tiger.

At the end of the day, they had a special event, the Predator Feed.  They had a truck with a trailer behind it that contained food.  They only feed the cats 3 times a week, and they hadn’t been fed since Sunday, so they were hungry.  They threw large turkeys, chickens, and some beef ribs to the different animals.  And they were very hungry. It was a little gross.  It was amazing that many of the animals in the same enclosures didn’t try to fight over the food.  I guess they knew that everyone would get their share.

It was a very enjoyable day observing the animals in the warm AZ sunshine.  We were glad we went.  If you want to see more pictures, click on the following link:

http://picasaweb.google.com/winequest/OutOfAfrica#