Zoo Lights

Tonight we went to Zoo Lights at the Zoo.
It was cool to see all the animal lights.
Of course Jake immediately wanted to go on the train.
The line was super long. I think we waited for an hour. Ugh. But I think if we had tried to leave Jake would have thrown a fit about not being on the train. Luckily there were some fun lights to entertain us while waiting, like this Wizard of Oz scene.

Yay, on the train!
After the train ride Jake saw and fell madly in love with this tiger. Right before we took this picture he was hugging the tiger, and he was totally talking to him and waving at him. It was hilarious -- we had no idea that he would take such a liking to this kind of thing.
And then he saw the polar bear!! He had to hug the bear not just once, but twice. He didn't want to leave the bear, but was just staring in awe at him.
It was a fun family activity. I think we might go back again another night, since we didn't get to see all the lights, but avoid the train.

One of the cool things about this was that the vast majority of the lights were LEDs. So even though there were millions of lights, the energy impact was very low and we still got to enjoy the light displays!

Flicking the Lights

Deaf people commonly use lights to communicate with one another in lieu of voices that we cannot hear (the other option is to use our feet to stomp on the floor or our fist to pound on the wall to create a loud, low-frequency vibration that can be felt).

Anyway, Mike and I are no exception. Luckily, we designed our house so that you can turn the upstairs lights on/off when you are downstairs and the downstairs lights on/off when upstairs. Thus if I am downstairs and need to let Mike know that dinner is ready, I will stand at the bottom of the stairs and flick the upstairs lights.

I was upstairs doing laundry a few days ago while Jake was downstairs watching a movie. All of a sudden the lights flicked. There was Jake, standing at the bottom of the stairs, waiting to talk with me!! Amazing.