Fish, Geese, Turtles and a Snake...

Mom and I went back to the botanical gardens and before you wonder why the heck we never do anything else on her days off but go there, here is our reasoning:

1. It's practically in our back yard...it takes a whole 3 minutes to drive through Mountain Brook Village from our house to get there.
2. Mom gets exercise strolling me around...'nuff said there.
3. I'm entertained for 1-2 hours, a difficult task to achieve at home all day because I get bored easily...
4. Mom's entertained.
5. I nap for an hour and a half afterwards. Mom relaxes while I nap, which makes her happy.
6. It's nice to get outside for fresh air...and before the swampy Alabama summers hit, we're trying to take advantage of the nice weather.
7. I can scream, babble, and make loud exclamations as loud as I want and it doesn't matter because we're outside!

So now that that is explained, you know why you read the same thing every week...we like the gardens! So today's trip was especially fun. Mom came prepared and brought bubbles to entertain us and a bag of old bread to feed to my friend the goose, only he had to share the bread with another goose and teams of carpe and turtles. And when I say 'teams,' I mean a whole freaking lot, because there were probably 20+ turtles...some as big as 18" in diameter (that's Mom the architect talking)...and dozens of fat fish approximately 2 feet long. Mom and I saw one turtle pop up that had a neck that must have been at least 6" long and it freaked us out because we thought it was a huge snake popping it's head out of the water at first because it didn't look like a typical turtle...I'm surprised Mom didn't drop me in the water, because she jumped a mile high when she saw it...but it turns out it was just a snapping turtle. So Mom tore up pieces of bread for the swarming critters, but as she was preoccupied with throwing them out to all my little friends, I managed to grab a handful of old bread while Mom was not looking and shoved it in my mouth. It was a good snack and I can see why all the fish, turtles, and geese were in a feeding frenzy over it!

So on the pathway back, we saw a snake...and it wasn't dead like the ones I saw on Mother's Day! It was alive and trying to coil under a rock...and it wasn't a small garden snake either because it had a white and grey diamond pattern on its back. It freaked Mom out and after that, every little twig and branch on the pathway looked like a snake to Mom! Even the rustling of squirrels and chipmunks in the leaves sounded like snakes slithering to her. It made for an exciting afternoon...

The words of the week are: Dog, Uh-oh!, and Whoa! I'm using these A LOT and Mom has noticed an unusually large amount of babbles these days...she can't take me anywhere without me yelling or babbling to all the people we pass...which makes shopping difficult. Plus, everyone stops us to comment on how cute and spunky I am...big surprise. But another thing I've started doing the past few weeks is my 'surfer dude' laugh. Every time my parents laugh, I make this hahuhuhuhuhuh noise, which gets great reactions out of everyone, including strangers. My laugh grouped with my new word 'whoa,'and I'm doing a great California beach bum impersonation!