First couple of days

June 29, I had to get up at 6:30 to be at my parents house a little after 7 for our ride to Des Moines. Of course, after telling me to be on time, my mother came out about 7:30 and we were on our way. We met up at a hotel ready to go at 8:30, the van and people didn't show up until about 9 and at 10 we were finally on our way. We stopped for lunch at about noon, had a Subway wrap and some cookies for ($9), changed drivers and were back on the road. This is where it started to get interesting (I guess?), this new driver kept swerving off the road, at one point we were in some construction where the road was two ways undivided and he swerved into the dividing cone things, this caused a panic attack in one of our passengers. That took a little time to calm her down and get back on the road, we changed drivers after getting gas a bit down the road. We finally got to the hotel about 10 of 7, which was cutting it close because the registration for the conference closed at 7, 4 people got registered before it closed, and then people were grumpy. After finally finding a bellhop to help us with all the baggage, we got into our rooms and settled down a bit. We headed down to the hotel restaurant for supper about 8:30, and finally ate around 9. Very long Day.
June 30: My dad and mom still had to register, so we headed downstairs about 8, I got a yogurt for breakfast ($3), and some water ($3). After getting them registered, we dropped dad off at his meeting and made plans to go to the zoo. We got to the zoo a little after 9, and it was wicked hot already. Temps were in the 90s and heat indices were in the 100s all the time we were there. There was a heat advisory Friday and Saturday, and Monday.
There were a lot of animals, but since it was so hot and humid, most of them were huddled in the shade, just trying to stay cool.
The capybara was out:

 This is a huge rodent that's related to a guinea pig. It didn't move much.

 And this squirrel would not get out of the way for a picture.
The most active animals were the elephants and the turtles.

 The 'dad' was hanging out on the hot ground throwing dirt on himself (they use it as sunscreen).

 The 'mother' and 'baby' were having a great time playing in the water.

 

 Here they are after getting out of the pond, throwing dirt on themselves.

 This is my favorite picture, it looks like they are embracing.
We also so the giraffes

 And a bunch of these little antelopey things.

The prairie dogs were out as well.

 And here are the turtles:

 They were making all this noise, so I had to see what they were doing.

 We finished about lunchtime. I picked up a few things:

 postcards and a pen ($9) right by the elephants.

I really wanted this stuffed elephant in the pink hoodie that says Saint Louis Zoo, I also picked up the stuffed stingray ($22).
I got a hamburger at their cafe ($4) for lunch. After getting back to the hotel, we basically relaxed until we went to meet my dad and wander through the exhibition hall and ended up at the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner.

I got the Margherita flat bread. Me and mom headed to a convenience store for water and some breakfast items, and then headed to bed.

Hawaii 1/1/2010

I can't believe it's the new year already. I'm a little buzzed from the drink I had with supper, so I hope this still makes sense. I woke up way too many times because of people celebrating. My MP3's batter finally went out around 3AM, so I attempted to plug it in and in my quest found out that the outlet my phone was in didn't work, so I plugged them both into another outlet and got them charged up.
Mom and I caught a bus to the zoo, and the driver wouldn't let us pay, we were all ready with our money out and he wouldn't take it, so that was cool. We got to the zoo too early, so we went out on the pier at Wakiki Beach and watched swimmers in the water. When we went back to the zoo, I found this really cool leaf (which you can't see and now isn't very cool anymore), but it was an oval leaf, probably about 8 inches long with pink and green on it, it was pretty neat. We got to see birds and monkeys and zebras and lots of animals you'd normally see at the zoo, unfortunately they didn't have their lion exhibit open (I always make it a point to visit the zoo and see the lion, or the aquarium when we go on vacation). This monkey below was one of the ones we saw, actually I think it was a lemur, but I really don't know. Anyway, he was just sprawled out in the morning sun like he was tanning, it was so cute.
Mom took a picture of me with a giraffe statue and I think it's pretty cute:

Also, Kevin called me and that got me happier. Ross picked us up around 11 and we went to the Dole plantation where we ate lunch, took a train ride and a garden tour. I didn't find it that impressive, we also ate some pineapple ice cream. That was pretty good. I bought a couple of postcards including one with a train that I sent to Kevin. We then went to the North Shore and watched the waves. We then decided to go back and deal with supper. We wandered down the beach and went to one place where we were suppoes to cook our own food. We all decided against that and went to the restuarant next door. I keep seeing all these people either doing a little cuddling or holding hands and I really wish Kevin was here.

Tomorrow we get on the boat for our cruise.