bear...bear...BEAR!!!!!!

Yesterday my class took a little field trip to a local park. Inside the park there is a small zoo, containing an assortment of animals that are mostly native to the area. I believe most of the animals were injured/abandoned/unable to survive in the wild, so they are here at the zoo to be cared for...and to entertain the people of Athens for free. I used to live walking distance from this park and visited the animals several times a week. I liked to think that the animals actually "knew" me, since I visited them so frequently...which was probably not true, but whatever. It made me feel happy.

ANYWAY. So yesterday we took the kids there, and FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, you would have thought we were at the World's Most Amazing Zoo, or at least Zoo Atlanta or some other "real" zoo, and not a tiny neighborhood zoo-park that counts vultures, possums, owls, and deer among its most celebrated exhibits. Seriously. Deer. Like we don't see 283928 of them dead on the side of the road every single day. Whatever. Luckily, my kids don't get out much, so they are totally wowed and amazed by any and all wildlife (true quote, from a child sitting on the sidewalk: "LOOK!!! ANIMALS!!" as they excitedly pointed at an ANT CRAWLING BY).

There are actually a few cool animals, though, and as a teacher you spend the whole day praying that those animals will actually be out and playing (as opposed to hiding in their shelters and wasting your whole field trip). The (teeny tiny) alligators did okay, the bobcats hid away and were a huge letdown, but the BEARS...oh man, did those bears deliver today. They were actually RIGHT UNDERNEATH the little viewing platform, on one of their man-made play structures, PLAYING AND WRESTLING with each other!! It was awesome. Normally they are sleeping. Or hidden. Or being completely lame in some other way. Today they were amazing and I wanted to throw them a treat as payment for their amazing performance. My kids basically lost their minds, but as a testament to the amazingness of the scene, they managed to be REALLY QUIET for about 2 minutes at first. We told them the bears would leave if they were loud. And I have never heard 20 kids be so quiet. But then they started talking and the bears didn't leave, so they called me on my bluff and quit those shenanigans.

I managed to get two videos of the bears. The first video has way better "bear playing," but the kids were still being really quiet (except for one kid who whistles the SAME NOTE ALL DAY LONG, which is not extremely annoying at all) and so it's just kind of boring. So I'm not showing you (unless you beg). But the second video, while rather boring footage of the bears, at least captures the (voices) personality of my kids (and me). I've watched it like 30 times and it cracks me up every time.

It's only 38 seconds long, so I think you should watch it. And then appreciate the fact that when I cut the video off, it was because my 20 darling children were all screaming "BEAR!!! BEAR!!! BEAR!! Hey, BEAR!!!!" at the tops of their lungs, and someone had to get that scene under control.