YEA! Labor Day Weekend

Whoa. This weekend I had more fun than I'm allowed to have. Friday night I participated in the "Back to School Bash" at the high school that I teach at. I sponsored a Dodgeball team and went into the dunk tank. The team I sponsored/ coached was called the "Stupid Freshman". they gave themselves that name, and it was too late to change it when I found out about it. The poor guys didn't win a game, but they had fun I hope. As much fun as you can get from being mergatroied by seniors who are twice your size. I went into the dunk tank, and got wet. Apparently, there was a lot of aggression toward the metric system. I got dunked at least five times. It was warm enough that it was a pleasant experience. Afterward wards me and several other young science teachers had a drink together.

Then Gina and Mary Erin came to visit. We went hiking at the local state park and then drove down to see Karen and Jason, the newly weds. They had just got a new puppy and that was cool to play with. He had a great brindle color and was super cute. The dog, not the hubby!

Saturday we went to the zoo. The Zoo is free in St.Louis, and we found free parking, so it was a really cheap weekend. The favorite part of the trip was going into the penguin house. Nice and cool , with lots of species of penguins. Expensive food, and lots of people.The Herpatarium was really cool too. The Insectarium had a butterfly house and it was beautiful to walk through large flocks of butterflies with red and yellow hibiscus flowers blossoming. We went into the zoo mid morning to later afternoon, so a lot of animals were sleeping. We saw tigers, bears, camels, zebra, giraffes, antelopes, red pandas, lemurs, frogs, scorpions, bird-eating spiders bigger than my hand.

Also, I hadn't really thought about it before, but I could be a zoo keeper for the St. Louis zoo. My bachelors degree in biology would get me to be a animal keeper. And...they have seasonal positions. (Afterall, I' will have had plenty of experience after this year!)

I'm also going to hike the Appalachian trail into two years...more about that later.