This morning the plan was for Daniel to join Lucy and I for breakfast at Kelly's and to come with me to work. Lucy and I were supposed to exercise this morning, but events conspired to prevent us. Lucy got up a bit late because her radio hasn't been working properly. The first few flakes of snow were falling as we left. About half way there, Lucy realized that we had forgotten to take out the trash on the abnormal day after the holiday. So we drove home and did that. By the time we were leaving for the second time, the roads had become snow-covered and slippery, so we drove very slowly and carefully, only to discover that the fitness club wasn't open until 8am. So we drove home to get Daniel and took him to breakfast.
I didn't actually get much work done with Daniel there, but we had a good time. We checked the mail and visited with people in the office. Daniel's interest started to flag after about 20 minutes, though. Luckily, another little boy was visiting the office, so Daniel played with him for a while and then I talked the herp curator into giving them a tour of the reptile collection. The kids got to see an alligator and lots of big turtles, snakes, and monitor lizards. The saw big-headed turtles and snapping turtles and side-necked turtles and soft-shelled turtles and musk turtles and boas and pythons and lots more besides.
"This is a Louisiana Mud Turtle," he told them.
"I have a coin from Louisiana," Daniel said.
"I've been to Louisiana," said the other boy, not to be outdone.
He got out a little coral-snake mimic and let them feel it.
"What does that one feel like?" asked Daniel indicating another colubrid.
"It feels just like this one," replied the curator. "I know how that game works," he said to me. But then he got out a big monitor for them to feel too, for a comparison. Daniel let it lick his hand.
It was a great adventure that made the trip to the office a lot more fun that it would otherwise have been.
Alisa called me at work to tell me that a package had arrived. Back in June, Alisa entered us in some contest and we learned today we won first prize. It was (wait for it) a Nintendo Gamecube! So now we have two. The boys insist, however, that we mustn't get rid of it.