Last Thursday, was Ascension Day. Not being Catholic or Protestant, this had no bearing on our lives other than to provide a free day from school and work. We decided to go to "the zoo where you can feed the animals" also known as Tierpark Arth-Goldau. We invited some friends along. because outings are always more fun that way.
The day started out a little cloudy, so I made sure to pack everyone a raincoat, and dress them in long pants. As we were walking from the parking lot to the entrance, it even started sprinkling. But that was it as far as rain went for the whole day. Midway through, we had all piled our coats on to the stroller, and were even wishing we had all worn shorts. I was a bit worried the park would be totally crowded, since we had to wait in quite a line for tickets. But they all seemed to disappear once we got inside, and it ended up being a great experience.
Right at lunchtime, we found ourselves at the grilling area, with all those people who had been waiting in line at the entrance with us. :( The upside was that someone else had already started the fire, and it was now beautiful coals, perfect for cooking our sausages. I manned the meat, while Jenna and Jarrod handed out water and vegetables, and Chris took photos. I felt a bit out of place, standing by this huge fire pit with 5 other men, but they were friendly enough. One guy even let me use his giant knife to flip over our sausages, since I was using a tiny little pink Swiss army knife of Jenna's. Everything was taking a really long time to cook and I could tell that the coals were starting to lose thier heat. I kept waiting for one of the grilling experts (men) to go grab some more wood from the pile to throw on, but not one of them ever did. Finally, I couldn't stand it anymore and dumped a whole armful on to the dwindling fire. The flames shot up nice and high, and then the food really started cooking. 🙂
We had brought no plates, no forks, and no napkins. But the kids had kindly emptied out one of the containers of vegetables, so I piled the sausages on that, and then Jenna had the kids go search the ground for little sticks. We poked those into the sausages and they just took bites off either end until it was gone. Worked great, and clean up consisted of us tossing them back on to the ground where we had found them. If only I could do that at home!
There were no incidents of extra hungry deer grabbing the food boxes right out of the kids' hands, which was nice. As usual when we go there, Sarah emptied her box halfway through, and Sophie ended up having to toss the last few pieces on the ground at the exit. There were tons of babies, including a stork, wild boars, deer, ducklings and a buffalo. No one could decide which baby was the cutest, but I voted for Alexandra. haha
We left just as everyone was beginning to get that tired/grumpy/whiny thing going on. Perfect timing, I say. And we had gotten such an early start (rare for us) that there was still plenty of time left to lounge around at home and feel like we were really "on vacation". I always like when an outing is so successful that on the way home the kids ask when we can go again. 🙂
