Giraffes

 Evie's been really into chess lately and she can easily beat me.  She wanted to take the chessboard over to Granna and Grannadaddy's house to get some new opponents.  It's been fun to watch her working on her logic skills this way.

  

She plays at least one game of chess a day against Seth.

She's continuing to do well with jiu jitsu.  The more we go, the more I'm into her doing this.  She's learning self-control, discipline, commitment, perseverance, along with self-defense.  

This week, Seth had planned to take her to the zoo as a "field trip" but when the day came, he wasn't feeling well.  I decided to leave work early to take her.  I've been working a whole lot because my supervisor is out on medical leave and I took the opportunity to step in for her (thinking this will lead to advancement), but it's meant that I've had to miss out on most chances to hang with Seth and Evie while they are doing home school in the other room.  I was happy to leave work early and get to take her to the zoo.  We talked a lot about the animals and she told me all kinds of facts I didn't know, and we also talked about memories of previous trips to the zoo.  She told me, "I like going to places I went to as a child, so I can remember how it was."  She was saying this about the zoo and also the Children's Museum that Granna took her to when we were in Las Vegas a while ago, and I thought it was funny and sweet.

On our zoo trip, Evie really wanted to feed the giraffes which costs extra, but I was happy to do it.  We paid and waited for our turn.  The zookeeper came to the bottom of the ramp where she was going to give us the spiel on the rules.  Evie, politely, said, "I've done this before."  The zookeeper said, "Okay, tell me one of the rules."  Evie told her all of the rules and the zookeeper said, in a funny way, "Okay then, step right up."  At the top of the ramp, they handed us some sycamore branches to feed the animals and the zookeeper told Evie to tell her everything she knew about giraffes.  Evie listed off several facts about how tall they get, that they live in herds, that their tongues are black, that their knees are actually their ankles, their gestational period, the names and relationships of the ones in the herd at the zoo... The zookeeper said, "How old are you?"  Evie replied, "Eleven."  The zookeeper said, "Oh good, you're too young to legally work so at least I have a few years before you take my job."  She had a really good time, and the zookeeper gave her several more branches than she was technically allotted, and also let her feed the giraffes a few leaf-eater pellets.  

I snapped this sweet pic of Siouxsie snuggling up against Evie earlier this week.