Honk if you love hooters

The Toledo Zoo had an Oktoberfest celebration like Detroit's, but Toledo was asking for $40 per person for their party. So we passed on that, and just plain went to the zoo for the animals. Jon had a great time as usual watching the hippo pool (they even climbed out of the water and trundled around for awhile!). In contrast, the meerkats were scampering about. We wonder if they are aware that their enclosure is right next to the white lions courtesy of Siegfriend and Roy? Being a Sunday in the fall, attendance in the Africa section was low, but they were still serving delicious flame-broiled burgers on demand.  Most unique about this visit? The penguins were honking. Listen for yourself:

Not captured on the video is when a couple of them would hide under rocks and make an entirely different, guttural sound. Were they having a good time, or just sneaking around?

Necessity is the mother of invention

When we first moved into our house last year, we really enjoyed the tiled floor in the kitchen. Over time, however, we have found it hard to keep clean, and the homemade job has shown its weaknesses at last, with a few tiles cracking, and others breaking loose from the blue grout altogether. So, it's time for a new floor! We got a great deal on a material that's a descendent of linoleum. It looks very classy, something like slate, and has a slight texture. We're still trying to decide whether it is more worth it to save money (tear out the floor ourselves) or save our backs from injury (and let the workers handle it all). This one change is inspiring a host of other customizations in the kitchen and laundry room, too--we'll spice things up with a new color of paint on the walls, get a better valance for the window, and spruce up the shelving system over the washer and dryer. Now if we can just manage to keep the pets from walking through the work area too much, we should be in good shape.

A visit from the west.

Cortney's Aunt Cookie and Uncle Michael flew in today from Washington, so we skipped choir in order to have dinner with them.  We always have a good time seeing them, which just doesn't happen often enough.  We had a great dinner with them, got to see some amazing pictures of Uncle Michael with an enormous fish (which he caught himself).  While here they also got some advice from Patty for their upcoming trip to Peru.  By the way, food is clearly a social event in our culture.  Tonight we tried multiple cheeses from around the world, had Cortney's dad's famous ribs, and topped it off with a Muscat (a dessert wine).

Oktoberfest is German for beer...

...according to Matt. We made a special trip to the Detroit Zoo with Matt and Kristin for their Oktoberfest event, featuring authentic German food and beer, a very loud polka band, and an enormous inflatable dude wearing Lederhosen. This day was special in more ways than one, however--it was also Adopt a Pet Day in the zoo's parking lot, the largest single gathering of dogs and cats in need of homes in Michigan. Honestly, we have no idea how we managed to escape without another mouth to feed. Matt and Kristin very nearly took a beautiful kitten home. Ah well, that just opens them up to the possibility of getting a puppy down the road.... :-) Jon wished he could have adopted one of the most oversized cats we'd ever seen, but couldn't because "Mr. Bigglesworth" didn't have a track record of living with dogs.

Meanwhile, back in the zoo, we enjoyed a good laugh at the prairie dogs. Last spring, they had had a litter of babies, and we remember how tiny they all were. Now, they are all fully grown and plumped up in readiness for the cold season. Our other favorite sighting of the day was the elusive aardvark. In the past, we have waited for hours to see him move and have never been rewarded until now, when he lifted his head momentarily. Just about the only hard-to-find zoo animal we have yet to see is an armadillo--maybe we'll get the chance at Toledo sometime soon.

Video games are good for you

Or at least they are when they give you a complete aerobic workout, as is the case with Dance Dance Revolution. Now we are the proud owners of the Extreme home version of the incredibly popular arcade game. It has brought back memories of our early dating days when we would play it at Pinball Petes downtown. Only now we don't have to worry about looking dorky in front of strangers! Now we can look dorky in front of each other and the friends we are sure to have over to play. While we aren't likely to ever have the skills of the tournament masters, we are definitely improving. The only question is, how long will it be until we give in a get a second floormat controller for dueling action?