Today we visited John Ball Zoo located on the outskirts of downtown Grand Rapids. What Grand Rapids kids do not have their picture taken on John Ball? Now my Oregon kids do too!
We started out the day with a low key morning. Our plan was to meet my sister and niece at the zoo after lunch. My sister and niece showed up with this beautiful lab dog named Marley. We were a little confused at first. My sister's family said a tearful good-bye in February to their dog Stoney. They fostered Stoney and adopted her from a rescue agency only a few months after we fostered and adopted our cat. I am thankful Stoney's last years were spent with their family!
My sister had an appointment to look at a dog this morning but we had no idea she would be coming home with a dog! I hope Marley will be a good fit for their family. It was awesome we could be some of the first people to meet her.
My sister took Marley to the park next to the zoo while the rest of us went to the animal exhibits. I have been to this zoo many times and even took my oldest a few weeks before we moved to Oregon. She was barely one years old. They have added some exhibits and upgraded some older ones. I was impressed.
My son really wanted to go to the petting zoo and brush some of the goats. The petting zoo mostly had goats and a few wandering chickens.
One of our favorites was "the budgie exhibit." We could feed the parakeets some millet on a stick. Some of the birds even perched on the stick or on our fingers.
It was a little funny that some people in the exhibit were totally freaked out when the birds landed on them. We had a yellow parakeet growing up so I am somewhat familiar with them.
We loved seeing the Australian animals and learning more about them. Some of them you could get super close to.
My youngest has loved tigers since she was two. Not a great picture but she was thrilled to see the tiger lounging in the grass. I was impressed to see how the tiger exhibit expanded and they now have lots of green space.
After the zoo we played in the park a bit and climbed trees. It was pretty hot today! We did not get too worn out by the heat.
Tonight we went to the
Cheshire Kitchen on the north end of Grand Rapids not too far from where we lived in the early 90's. Rob and I bought my parents gift cards to this restaurant for Christmas with the intent of treating them to a local cafe...not just a chain restaurant. They postponed using it until we came. It was a real treat the kids and I got to go with them. I loved it that they serve breakfast all day. I think I went here once or twice in my life, but it looked completely different from what I remember. So it could be this was my first time.
Some of us got ice cream afterwards. My dad and Hailey both enjoyed coffee flavored ice cream!
Then my mom and I made a trip down memory lane. She has a wall in the downstairs of her condo with photographs of almost all the churches my dad served. The Grand Rapids ones are missing. She said she needed to drive by Beckwith Hills CRC (where my dad served from 1989 to 1995) and take a picture sometime. So I said, "Let's go. We are so close."
This is the church my dad served when I was in junior high and high school. As I was taking pictures I remembered we moved here on August 16, 1989--28 years ago to the day!
This is the house we lived in which was next door to the church. It was probably the largest and nicest house we lived in of the several parsonages we grew up in. We were only here about five years and then we moved to the south side of town.
We drove through the north end of town reminiscing about other sites and places I used to ride my bike to. We shared memories about the days both my brother and I had neighborhood paper routes. My mom helped us so much she recalled stories about the huge dog that almost attacked my brother. My route was all indoors in nursing homes that have since been torn down and replaced by newer apartments.
These were some of the hardest years of my dad's ministry. But that's another story for another time. There was many bright spots among the challenges. It is a part of my story that God used in my own calling in the ministry.
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