...that when you throw a cup of skim milk, half of an 8 ounce can of pineapples, and a handful of ice into the blender, that it looks like THIS? Where does the froth come from?? I was so surprised that it looked like this that I had to plop the glass down, right there on my desk where I keep my camera, and take a photo! What an unexpected treat on the first strict four days of the Flat Belly Diet! So far, it has not been too hard, and on day five, I can begin eating somewhat normally again. I will update periodically as I go... maybe my Cecilia pregnancy weight (or at least the belly!) will get under a bit better control. ;)
Pentecost is considered to be the "birthday of the Church," since that is when the Holy Spirit descended and the apostles began to go out and spread the word. So it is considered to be a pretty important day, and we celebrated like we did last year! Caroline helped me to make this descending dove Pentecost spinner again... we made it during the week before Pentecost Sunday.
For part of our dinner, we had a twelve fruit salad, representing the 12 fruits of the Holy Spirit. Here's where I got the idea, although we just had the fruit, no dressing on it. I thought I had a kiwi, and I forgot about the can of pineapple in the pantry... so I was two fruits short. I ended up throwing in some raisins and dried cranberries to get to 12, ha ha!
Here are our cupcakes, like we had last year. There are 13 of them - representing the 12 apostles and Mary (which is why there is a blue cupcake at the top). Each one has a candle so that when lit, it depicts the tongues of fire that came to rest above each of their heads.
We hung up our doves again this year... if you care to see each ornament up close, you can click on the link to last year above this photo. The girls and I also colored some Pentecost pictures which we hung on the china cabinet. Caroline cut hers out and glued it to red paper. She later colored a dove picture just like Cecilia did... after Pentecost. You can see in this photo that our priest is in his red vestments.
Mmm... cupcakes! (Er, wheat germ muffins with frosting on top! I love that we can find ways to celebrate things and still eat in a somewhat healthy way!)
We also finished up our Garden of the Good Shepherd sticker calendar... fifty days went by very quickly, according to Caroline! She couldn't believe we'd gone through fifty stickers already! Next year, I hope to do more of the Good Shepherd Garden Parties... we had lots of fun with the one that we did do this time!
For those of you who know us, you may be wondering, "Why did they go to the Birmingham Zoo? Don't they live in Georgia, closer to Zoo Atlanta??" Chris was going to Birmingham for the day on Saturday to shoot some videos for apologist John Martignoni (Catholics may recognize his name). So we tagged along on the two hour trip to visit the zoo while they worked.
Our first stop was the petting zoo area. Goats and sheep for petting and brushing.
Rats! When telling Daddy about the zoo, the girls told him, "There were some rats in a wall." That is exactly what they were... a panel on one of the barn's stall walls opened, and one of the zoo workers dumped the rats into it! The other side was covered in some plexiglass type material so we could see the rats.
Being nocturnal, this owl was sleeping - right there in the open - and the girls are banging on the fencepost and yelling to try to wake him up. He must be a pretty laid-back fellow - he blinked once and continued to sleep...
There were chickens near the petting zoo, and we noticed one rooster was outside of the coop... not sure if that was intentional or not. Later, we noticed a rooster and a hen wandering around in the "food court" area... very random. People were feeding them french fries, sadly.
This tiger came to the inside viewing area just as we approached the window. Perfect timing! Then it went back to the outside part of the enclosure. Now, maybe I'm spoiled because of being used to Zoo Atlanta, but this zoo has a "predator house." They have a bunch of wild cats... in indoor cages. Some have absolutely no outdoor access, like the bobcats. I thought that was really sad. There was also a primate house, where the smaller monkeys - and even the orangutans - lived in indoor rooms. There is construction being done on a large part of the land there, though, where they are making some kind of African exhibit... and there is plenty of land there for them to make bigger outdoor habitats. Hopefully that is what they will be doing. They are getting some elephants once that is completed, too.
And rhinos. last time I took Caroline to a zoo, she said, "Rhino-nosserus picked me out!" She was a bit younger than Cecilia is now when she said that... we never figured out what exactly she meant by saying that it "picked her out." Maybe it looked at her? These ones didn't pick her out - they were sleeping. Caroline asked, "Are they real?"
This might have been the coolest exhibit in the place... the lorikeets. These bright-colored birds were hopping and flying all over the place, with no fear at all of humans! You could feed them a little cup of nectar, and they would come right up and eat it as you held it out to them, and we even saw some of them sitting on people's arms to eat! One landed on Caroline's head briefly, ha ha! 
We watched a sea lion training show. The sea lions would hop up on ramps, jump in the water, lay down, and leap out of the water to touch a ball on a stick (and were rewarded with fish each time, of course!). They did all this by watching the zookeepers motion with their hands!
Caroline spotted a peacock and was excited that we had seen this animal on our Garden of the Good Shepherd Easter calendar earlier that week! Also on our calendar, we'd seen...
... a pelican! Pelicans are much bigger up close than you would think! And they are kind of mean, too, so I am not sure why we were allowed to get this close to them! O course, I told the girls the story of Uncle Stephen catching a pelican with his fishing pole...
We rode the little train that goes around the zoo... just $2 each, so I figured, why not? The admission to this zoo is so much cheaper than I am used to from Zoo Atlanta!
Last stop was this kids' area, where they had fountains to splash in and a big inflatable thing filled with bubbles (foam, they called it in the brochure). 
Caroline stayed in the foam the whole time until I told her to come out and splash in the fountains a few minutes to rinse off, since Daddy had arrived to meet us in the parking lot!
Caroline said that the kids in the foam asked her where her bathing suit was... we had a change of clothes in the car instead!
As much as Caroline wanted Cecilia to come in the bubbles with her, I wasn't about to let her go in where she would be completely engulfed and possibly trampled by bigger kids who couldn't see her! She didn't want to go in either, and so she enjoyed the fountains.
