Cat Tales Zoo

So, since Dave has been in school all summer, we haven't done a lot of stuff as a family. So we decided the two weeks we have between his school and the girls school we would put some fun family things in kind of like mini vacations. We are heading to the mountains next weekend, and so that will be a vacation. While we are in school going on real vacations is just too expensive! 

 North of Spokane is a Zoo and Training school called "Cat Tales". It is in a city called Mead. You get off the free way in Spokane and head down Division, you go 6 mi, which is all the way down Division and you take a turn off on the Newport Hwy. Than you drive another 6 miles and it's just there on the side of the road, just after the turn off for Mt Spokane Park. It's not a very big place but there is a lot of history and there enclosures are as such, to where you end up being a lot closer to the animals than  you would in a normal zoo, about 8 ft. They have many workers that are always around to answer questions and talk about the animals it was pretty cool. They had several statues around the zoo and so we took advantage. 

 They had several bob cats, most of them brothers and sisters... it was hot and so this was the only one that was active. 

 I don't take a lot of pictures and so I forgot how stupid my camera can be... I took a lot more pictures of this White Tiger, but apparently this the only one that took, Look very closely and you can see his head peaking out of the pool. It was a girl I believe and when she got out of the water she came and paced the side of the fence... I took several pictures (lol) and well at one point it stopped flipped it's tail and put it's butt up against the fence and peed, marking it's territory on a statue that it always uses, I was standing there with a couple, older couples and they quickly got out of the way... eww. The zoo keeper said that she goes home at night and she smells so bad, like there marking territory scent her dogs love it... she says it doesn't come out of clothes so she strips her work clothes and bleaches them... strange... but very interesting. That Tiger kept chuffing... I love that movie with Matt Damon, "We bought a Zoo" and Scarlett Johansens character talks about how Tigers Chuff they don't growl... it was pretty loud at times, but pretty cool. 

 They had several tigers, I saw 4 and I think there were more... there animals were donated to there zoo, either because they were old or they were rescues. The mother or something of the tigers was a circus performer and came there and now they have the kids... they were pretty cool... they loved to be right next to the fence... 

 They had a few lions... I only saw two. One that was a female and one male... 

 Than they had bears. This guy was up in some guys garage as a cub living in his garage and the guy found him... up near Mt Spokane and so they rescued him and he is vegetarian... pretty funny! 

 I thought this was funny... I just love animals I am very fascinated with them... sorry if the pictures are boring. 

 they had some leopards... they are all in there teens. Most leopards in captivity they live 15-19 years, this one is 15. And in the wild they live 8-10 years... The mother of this leopard and it's two sibblings, one being black was on a Zoo show awhile back... they are the first ones to ever be born in captivity. 

 This would have been a cool picture f I would have gotten the tigers face... 

 We stopped for lunch and ate our picnic in there little park... 

 If you are 8 or older you can pay to feed the animals.... this girls brother fed the white tiger meat, and she is feeding the bear watermelon... he loved it.. his name was Oscar. 

This is the youngest animal they have it's a baby lion... this was the most awake he was the entire time... he is only 18 mo old...  

I know so silly, I always take the pictures and am never in them... so ta Da! I felt good today so I decided I needed to strut myself in a picture! 

It's super cool place, I wish I would have known about this place when I was younger I would have loved to come and train there to work with the animals... there was no guys just girls, and the old lady that owns the place... so cool! You can donate food for the animals and so I think the next time I go I will donate some food. It cost $35 for our family to get in. They are open t-sun, 10-5. The animals are at there best at 5 because it's eating time. $10 for me and Dave and then $5 for each the kids. 

Spokane Temple!

Today was a splendid day!

Dave had to buy a new lap top for school which starts in a month, and well...

with the one he bought on line, with his school grant it came with a free X-Box 360, and since we obviously already have one, we sold it for what it was worth and used the money

to pay for a new mouse, and for mine and Daphne's birthday presents.

Since I always seem to get jipped on my birthday, and Dave gets the royal treatment, we are always broke on my birthday, because of, loss of job, or something strange... so this year I got the royal treatment (even though my birthday isn't for another month), and got to spend $100 on myself... on whatever I wanted, so I wanted to go to Target... so we spent the day doing what I wanted to do. Awesome huh?

We got up what... 6, 7 am and hung out and I cleaned the house with the help of the family,

than we got ready and headed towards Spokane.

We went straight to the Spokane, Washington LDS temple! It was beautiful!

Smaller than our temple but the grounds were amazing, and it's like out in the valley and so

it's not surrounded by hardly any houses, just by land, and trees! It was beautiful!

There were two weddings going on (amazing huh?) and so we stayed away!

My favorite part of the temple is where it says,

"Holliness, to the Lord, House of the Lord"

It was dedicated 3 years before Columbia River Washington's and it was the year I graduated from high school... awesome!

such beautiful flowers everywhere!

And of course right next to it was a ball field and pavilion that belongs to the stake center!

With swings and a slide...

I can't believe how much land... how come all temples don't have this much land... in Richland it is so horrible there are houses practically hanging over the fences... just kinda disturbs if you ask me !

It was a good day though, after we went and ate lunch at the food court in Target and I shopped. I will show you later what I purchased with my gift! My husband is so good to me! It was a fun day, we got home around noon and I watched a new movie I got Miss Congenality... which came in a two pack with Miss Congenality 2, for only $7.50. I also got a set of 4 movies, "Wimbledon", "Head over Heals", and "The Perfect Man" the other one was the only one not rated pg-13 and it's burned on the same disc so I just won't watch it...

I am doing some home improvements, minor but I bought a new iron to help me out! It's amazing how necessary an iron is, when you craft!

On a very very sad note, when we got home, Dave got a call and a family he just started home teaching had there 4th child a girl Thursday and she was fine, but than Saturday morning at 1:30 she passed away and they couldn't revive her. So so so sad, our whole ward is so sad for them, and it's amazing how good of a ward family we have. Meals have already been taken in, and more will when they request. I just figure in times like this, because I got super emotional as well, having two kids, I couldn't imagine, apparently that baby just needed a body. The family is strong and has there family in town with them now! So so so sad! We are keeping them in our prayers and hearts!

Mobius Museum

Some good friends of ours and previous neighbors came into Spokane this past weekend before Memorial Day and me and the girls had the chance to go spend some time with them.

Ben and Siena Meyers lived in Spokane before moving to Kennewick and so they had friends and knew of things to do, and so they introduced us to Mobius Museum. It's in the basement of the River Front mall and it was quite wonderful. As you can tell the girls had a great time.

Dinosaur sandbox table actually it was multi-colored rice

This is the under 3 area and so there was some fun wall puzzles

As you can tell they really enjoyed this area, it took them a long time to want to move on... we came back to it to at the end.

They also had this water table that the girls couldn't get enough of

lego table that Daphne wasn't too thrilled with

This cool hut that had food and chairs and stuff in it... you can see cute Harvey in the background

And some girl pulled some chalk out to draw on the floor with

My phone was dying so I couldn't take more pictures. There was also a arts and craft area where kids were painting and drawing and doing a project they had there. The girls loved painting, it was a good thing that it was water based paint. There was also this huge T-Rex sculpted out of recycled paper and such and so I decided it was a good picture opp.

We had a great time and even though it was $5.75 for the day per person over 18 mo, it was still a blast. I am glad I got to see the Meyers, I had gotten my van repaired just in time. Now anyone else that wants to come to Spokane feel free, just call me so I can see you too!

The Meyers left around noon and went and saw a movie, I knew Daphne wouldn't sit through one and so we made good use of our 3 hour parking and decided to check out the mall. It is an expensive mall with William Sonoma, and Pottery Barn and Gucci I believe we went and got candy necklaces from a ritzy candy store, and went into the cool toy store which is perfect place to go for the kid who has everything. We had lunch at the Pita Pizza which I learned has soy cheese, i couldn't tell it was delicious I can't wait to eat there again!

It's fun getting to know new parts of Spokane... but wow it's so busy! If Cheney had a few more of the fun convinces in stores than I would never leave! I am hoping it starts to warm up soon because there are several small water parks I want to check out on Dave's day's off!