I have some sad and shocking news for you. The dinosaurs are DEAD.

I am tired and my feet are KILLING ME but today has been a good day. Why? Because in one day I got to... witness the miracle of birth, spend hours with little kids on a field trip to a dinosaur museum, get flirted with by a high school boy, and finally spent awhile talking about Fresno's mother's surgery and other such stuff. Check it out! I had a whole lifetime today!

First day at TGP and while I can foresee this being a very HARD job, it was cool!

Started off normal enough. HR. Paperwork. W-4 forms. Employee Handbook. Time cards. Then me and the other girl being hired the same time met our boss... Rinny. She took us on an abbreviated tour of Farm Country while explaining a little about the job in general.

But when we were by the turkeys we heard a little girl start CRYING and a huge group gasp over by the goats. So we booked it over there. ONE OF THE GOATS WAS HAVING BABIES! Well, technically, she was having the third of her triplets and the placenta after birth stuff. (which terrified the 3 year old child, apparently) Yeah, pretty gross... but COOL! I didn't get most of the pictures until AFTER work (both mine... AND Mama's) but at least you can see them a couple HOURS old, and how teeny they are! The runty third is about the size of a KITTEN!

By the way, one of the Farm girl said she was naming the runt AFTER Rinny. Which I thought was pretty funny, but I am not sure if the other new girl did.
So, just FYI, if you are thinking you would like to have your kids come to Farm Country when there are cute baby animals (and MAYBE get to have a random lesson on the facts of life... meaning Biology... not the old sitcom with the Boarding School) DUDE, we are, quite literally BURSTING AT THE SEAMS with them. We got calves, we got cute little black lambs born this week, we got baby pygmy goats born TODAY(!!!), we got chicks, and there are going to be baby Nubian goats like anytime this week because Holy Hannah that one is SOOOOO Pregnant.

But anyway, yeah SAW A GOAT GIVE BIRTH AT WORK. How many people can say that?!*

It was sort of hard for ANYTHING to be that interesting after that, mind you, but we went on. With a little more info from Rinny back in her office, we were handed some materials and shepherded over to the Amber Room in the Dinosaur Museum to "shadow" a class (not a field trip, those are mornings, this was more like a day camp preschool thing.) called "In Search of Plant-Eating Dinosaurs" with 3 and 4 year olds. However, when dealing with kids that age "shadowing" is really just being another of the teachers, because oh my heck, kids are work. We colored pictures and made "Stegosaurus Hats" from paper plates. And then we went into the museum to search for plant eaters.

The funniest, though, was this one adorable girl, 3 years old, named Evelyn. First she tells me, "Teacher, know what? I'm crazy about Dinosaurs!"

"You are? That's great, Evelyn! Because that is what we are learning about today!"

"Yeah! And my favorite dinosaur is Brachiosaurus!"

So that was cute enough. But there was only one problem. When we got to the museum Evelyn started to CRY! She looked terrified and SO SAD! When I asked her what was wrong she was just bawling and said "I just wanted to see the Brachiosaurus! I didn't want to see their skelling-tons!"

"Oh sweety, I am sorry. There aren't any dinosaurs alive today."

"I didn't know they would DIE!!!"

Poor kid! She thought when I said TODAY it was like if she just had got here YESTERDAY she's have got to see her favorite all alive and well, but she was too late. Hee hee hee! It was adorably sad. She just walked around the whole time staring at the floor sad that she thought she had JUST missed those living Brachiosauruses, until we got to the Tyrannosaurus Rex and the head teacher told them all to pretend to be plant eating dinosaurs and run past it. Then Evelyn, who had seen Jurassic Park SCREAMS, very serious, "No, you can't run because he'll see you!" and starts to cry again. I could not get her calmed down for forever. She kept saying "No, no! He only sees if you move!" I told her about how it wasn't alive, how the bones were so old they had turned into rocks, but she kept screaming. She was honestly just terrified! I finally had to scoop her up and carry her past the scary "skelling-tons." After a story time under the precious Brachiosaurus we had an egg hunt for dinosaur eggs and served carrot sticks.

It was all fun, but a very long day and I was SO TIRED, but I needed cuttle bone for Tortuga and flakes for the fish and so I stopped at PetSmart in Lehi. I, of course, just planned to run in quickly, because I felt pretty beat, but as usual my gliders were sending me telepathic "buuuuuuy us tooooooys" messages so I had to look in all the usual places (cat toys, hamster/gerbil toys, and bird toys) for suggie-approved toys.

However, as I was looking, a little sales kid with skunk hair (seriously, like dyed black with a white stripe) asked if he could help me, to which I said no thanks I was just looking. But then he just continued to hover a bit and asked me if I had a cat (I was in cat toys at the time). I said no, Sugar Gliders. Then he started to tell me how much he wanted one and asking about them. But the funniest thing, is, and I COULD be wrong, but I could SWEAR he started FLIRTING with me! He had to be just 16, but still, it was funny. Not creepy even. He was a really cool kid. And so, we talked... meaning mostly HE talked, for 2 WHOLE HOURS! Even as I kept walking with my cart. He followed me and kept talking. It was funny. And then when I said, "well, hey it was good to meet you but I really need to go HOME" he SIGHED and said "Oh right. Sorry I kept you."

"Oh, no worries! You didn't keep me."

"Okay. Well, Do you want to... I mean, I guess maybe I will see you later. If you shop here."

I just said "Yeah, see ya!" and went to check out. Had he actually finished what he was about to which SEEMED like almost a date invite I would have told him I was dating Fresno. (Which would have been nicer, I figured, than ALSO bringing up the fact that I was at least 10 years older than him because he really didn't seem to get. (one of the things he talked about was that his mom said he couldn't get any more pets and when I said I lived with roommates he said "you have a roommate? That is SO COOL." Yeah, ummm... awesome?)Yeah, I don't think Fresno needs to be jealous, but it was fun and flattering anyway.

Maybe it is silly, but it doesn't much seem to matter WHO flirts with you, it is ALWAYS fun. Well, as long as they aren't, like, creepy... like trying to kidnap you out of the girl's bathroom in Carl's Junior. UGH.

When I DID get home I spent a good time on the phone with Fresno. He really is pretty perfect. He is funny and he is just LOVING his dogs! And we can talk so EASILY and he doesn't usually stress me out. We talked more about his plans to come out here the end of this month to play, and more about him moving, and his mom;s surgery not going good and to keep her in my prayers. It was just... GOOD. Yeah. I am pretty twitterpated with the boy.

All in all, GOOD DAY. (and yes, I know that this took so long to write that it will no longer BE today when you read it. Deal with it.) And now, I need to SLEEEEEEEP!

*(inside suburban-metropolitan Northern America. I realize that there are some people, like, well, FARMERS, that that is not that weird for. But for me, well, I was pretty floored.)