Thursday, May 29, 2008

MASTER JAMIE

After a long and tedious program, I finally finished my Masters of Arts in Christian Education. I tried to enforce that everyone must refer to me as "Master Jamie", but I quickly learned that it just wasn't going to happen. Next up for me: REST... then I will be looking into PhD programs. Nikki and Lainey both had to endure long restless nights of studying and papers. They really should have walked across the stage with me.
Pre-Graduation Ceremony
Diploma in hand, what a relief!
I am sure that my Parents were scratching their heads, knowing what kind of student I was in high school. note: they don't refer to me as "Master" either!
My Pastor, Doug Richey



ZOO-ology

Nikki and I took advantage of a gorgeous day and took a day-trip to the good ole Kansas City Zoo. Lainey seems to have developed a fascination with animals so she had a good time. The morning started a little slow.All of the animals must have hit the snooze button a couple of times. The first hour or so all we could see was sleeping animals which made for a rather boring morning, but the longer we were there, the more the animals became active. Lainey didn't really seem to be attracted to one animal over the others, but she does make a very cute monkey sound.



This gorilla and I "tussled" for a little while before he finally had enough and walked away defeated!
Right next to the Elephants read a sign: NO POACHING??? To me it seems obvious that a zoo would be off limits to such activity. I guess we can't assume too much.



FUNNY Story: I've always heard that sheep have to be one of the dumbest animals, but this trip proved that sheep aren't no dummies (pardon the poor use of english). You actually walked through the sheep exhibit and there was a "candy" machine for sheep food. What a brilliant idea I thought, to feed the sheep. So as I placed the quarter in the machine, this brute of a sheep jumped up the post, lifted the cover with his snout and proceeded to lick every last morsel of the food from the machine before I could even get it out. As you can see this one doesn't usually miss a meal OR an opportunity to ruin the opportunity to feed the others. But I finally wrestled the sheep from the machine and was granted the opportunity to feed some of the others.
Lainey enjoyed petting the sheep.
The queen and princess of Arabia on their majestic camel
If I had the opportunity to mount an animal on my fireplace, I think something like this would be my choice. What a friendly, dumb, yet gentle looking beast.Lainey just had too much fun for one day.