Elephants

Every year, on the birthday of my elephant-loving daughter, we make a trip to the zoo to see the elephants. Sadly, this year, one of the young elephants, Kenzi, died. This was especially sad since this is the elephant who made her debut on my daughter's 5th birthday, 7 years ago. At that time, we had chosen to adopt the elephant and received a plush with Kenzi's name on it. We do still have the plush that is in better shape than the once live elephant. So sad.

Still, we made our journey and found a couple elephants who were out. One of them was using a branch that had broken off and fallen onto the ground to shake loose leaves with her trunk. At one point, this elephant flung the branch high into the air, and we all ducked for cover thinking it would land on our heads. But, alas, it landed in the branches of another tree. We had never seen elephants use a branch to gather food. It was interesting.

I uploaded a couple pics to my Facebook and to my Puddle Jumping group on Facebook, but the rest of the photos reside on my phone. So, when I went to upload them here, I discovered there is no way to upload pics from an iphone onto Blogger anymore unless I transfer them off to my PC laptop and then upload from there.....  Such a hassle.

I'm in search of what to do about this. I'm even considering switching my blogger blog that has been here for several years over to Word Press. But, before I make the drastic decision of where my blog will be, my only option is to link my pictures from the Word Press blog here:

ELEPHANTS

Elephant pictures

With an elephant lover in our family, we don't believe it's a good thing to poach elephants.   However, we do a different kind of elephant hunting on our own.  We take pics of every elephant we encounter. 

It could be a toy, fabric, or a real elephant. 

Here's done we saw this week. 

Where's Peara? Elephants Show Up Even in the Foothills

My family and I were traveling a couple weeks ago, went around a corner and up a hill, and suddenly my husband was pulling over. All he would say, is, "Trust me!" as he pulled around.

As we rounded the corner of this parking lot, it became hugely clear why he wanted us to stop.

My daughter is a major elephant lover. We're not quite sure where her love for elephants began, but she absolutely loves elephants. When my husband saw this larger-than-life replica of an elephant, we had to stop and take a look.

 This one was more than just a statue. I think it may have once been a part of a Noah's Ark outdoor play or something, maybe like Shepherd of the Hills, which sadly is in its last season in 2014. Though, I am not sure. It felt like a real elephant to the touch. It was sort of rubbery, and the tail swung if you swooshed it.

Of course, it was too tall to put the girls up on it for a picture, and I'm not even sure if it would have been allowed had the elephant been smaller. But, Peara got to enjoy the high perch:

 

There was also a lookout lens that didn't even cost a quarter. And, look at the view! Beautiful!

I wish I could tell you the exact location of this elephant, but all I know is we were on our way back from the Visitor Center near the dam, headed toward a lodge in Indian Point. I'd like to say, you can't miss it. But, if my husband hadn't spied this large mammal, we would have kept driving unaware.

Our sewing project elephant

A few weeks ago, my sister and neice gave my elephant-loving daughter a sewing kit.

It's a plush elephant that has pockets to hold an iPod Touch or Droid, or whatever you want to put inside the pockets.

Today, I broke out my sewing machine, and I have one very happy little girl.

Here's the finished product:

It was a kit from Hobby Lobby, and it was super easy to make:

The ear flops over to hide the pocket for an iPod Touch (which my 7 year old does not have, but hopefully she'll get something eventually).

The other side has a larger pocket that could hold her Droid, but she broke her Droid.  So, maybe in the meantime, she can put a small book in this pocket.



Elephant love!

Tons of Elephants

As many of you know, my daughter loves elephants.  She knows all of the names of the elephants at the St. Louis Zoo, including the new babies and their complete ancestry line.

When she was two years old, we discovered she loved elephants after she received a Webkinz elephant from my niece.

Since that time, she decided it was her personal endeavor to save all the elephants in the world.

After her bedroom became filled with stuffed elephants, we altered her plan and decided to simply take pictures of all the elephants we encounter.

Little did I know, we would encounter so many.  On her last birthday, we went to the zoo gift shop and saw and took pictures of 88 elephants all in one setting.  I did, however, walk away with a new stuffed elephant and a bag with a picture of an elephant on it.

Here's some of the elephants we've encountered lately: