First Grade Zoo

On Thursday, I got the to accompany a bunch of animals MadHatter's first grader class on their field trip to the zoo.  Each chaperon got a few kids, a map and 2 1/2 hours to wander at their leisure.  Leisure?  It's like they had never been around a bunch of 7 year olds at the zoo.  It is more like run to one exhibit,  Oooooh and Aaaaahhh for a second, run to the next exhibit, get distracted by a giant statue, see a fence that needs to be climbed,  realize there is an animal behind that fence, point it out and talk to it for a minute, but then realize there is a slide that you have to slide down and, and, and...  And I wouldn't have it any other way.

These were my two charges - MadHatter and her friend A.

 Though you wouldn't know it by the number of pictures I got to take, we covered many of the exhibits, and a lot of ground during our free time.  5 miles of ground to be exact.  And even that didn't wear them out.  So we met up with their class for lunch, got a bit of food into their bellies, and let them run wild on the playground for an hour.  And wild they were...

 

 Then some ice cream...

 A lost tooth...

And a photo with MadHatter's first real crush, who is sadly leaving to go back home at the end of the year...

We got them together for a final group picture (one of them with their silliest face, of course) and bid Na Shledanou to the zoo.  What a great day to get to be a part of.

Auschwitz

Auschwitz.

I have been trying to write this post for almost 2 weeks.  And I just can't find the words.  So maybe 

there just aren't any.  

Instead,  I give you my pictures.  

Pictures that cannot convey the true horror that still lingers in a place where such atrocities occurred. 

Pictures devoid of the living, but so full of human suffering.  

Pictures without color, but not without life.

Pictures that can let us see, but can never make us understand.

Because the human mind is not set up to understand something like this.

Pictures that prove that I got to do what 1.2 million did not - walk through the gates with my husband and my daughters by my side...and then walk out again when I had enough. 

Pictures that will hopefully let my girls, and me, remember that this can never happen again.