Putting the "All Creatures Great and Small" Creed to Test

With Jared starting school, the boys and I inevitably had to start adventuring all on our own.  You see, I like Jared. I like him to be around. I don’t want him to miss out on anything.  That and, it’s just plain easier to adventure with him.  Our first major outing without Daddy, however, was fantastic!  That is except if you count Walmart as a major outing, which I guess it kind of was when Silas turned into the Monster from the Great Abyss, screaming constantly at every little thing he wanted in the most annoying high pitched scream he could muster.  But besides that little joyous moment, our first daddyless outing was fantastic.  We ventured forth and visited the world famous, highly acclaimed, superific, Victoria Bug Zoo!!! 

Settle down now, I’ll get to the goods. 

The day after a rainy day with little to do (we didn’t think to bring umbrellas or rain coats to Victoria... what were we thinking? ...and we have no toys, because they wouldn’t have fit in the car) I figured I needed to come up with something triple wicked awesome, so as much as it gave me some wicked creepy crawlies just thinking about it, I loaded the littles and off to the Bug Zoo we headed. 

Eli was in HEAVEN!!!  I continued to be creeped out.  Silas didn’t really get it.

While I’m sure your imaginations are running wild with how incredible it must have been, the Victoria Bug Zoo was actually kind of cool.  It was a large room with a bunch of aquariums that housed hundreds, if not thousands, of different creatures.  Okay, there were only about 40 different bugs, but if you count all the individual ants in the largest ant colony in CANADA, I’m sure there were several thousand!  The greatest part was that they had "tour guides" that were there just to tell us about all the different bugs, and they took the less dangerous ones out for us to hold and touch (and when I say "us" I actually mean the tough one amongst us: Eli.)

Don’t ask me what that is. A cricket of some sort with enormous wings that sing.

That is a millipede, which, incidentally, only have 400 legs, not a million, or even a thousand, as their name might suggest. 

Possibly the one that grossed mom out the most.  Ewww!

Not wanting to risk any torn off legs, Silas’s attention was easily diverted to the bugs behind glass:

This one no one was allowed to hold.  Apparently she is shy.

And so no one thinks I’m a total wimp:

I promise I’m not as happy as I look.  In fact, I’m kind of squealing through that grin.

And that was it.  Eli didn’t go to bed with any declaration of "but I only got to hold the largest bugs in the history of EVER!" and I only had a few night terrors that night.