

These majestic and ominous clouds moved very rapidly from the western horizon on Friday night.
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It's a sweet little.... baby skunk. An exotic pet store near us has them once a year, only in June. I met a lady with a couple of them riding in her cart at Petsmart a few months ago. As a pet, they're kind of a mix between a cat and a ferret. You can litter train them and they're very fun, inquisitive and active. And also gamey. Despite being de-scented, they definitely have a strong body odor. (Mom noticed the burning candle hidden on a nearby shelf). Nevertheless, the skunks really are very cute.
Emmalee gets up close and personal with an alligator. One of the things this pet store does is rescue alligators that have been dumped and place them in an animal refuge. (They just placed a 6 foot American Alligator in a refuge earlier this week. He'd been in their store 5 years while they raised funds for it.) The three they currently have were given up by their owners after they got too big. But the store owner told us the DNR pulls about 15 alligators out of the nearby river every year. Yeeks.
Today was a big day for Emmalee. It was her first time to go down The Blue Slide at the water park/pool by our house. It's a very tall flume-like slide that's VERY fast. She's been waiting for at least two years to be big enough to go down that slide. This winter, she hit the coveted "48 inch" line - the height requirement not only for riding The Beast at King's Island, but the big slides at our aquatic centers too. So today was a big deal - the fulfillment of a dream. She's been talking about it since we measured her on her birthday last November and found she would be tall enough come summer to ride that slide! Emmalee is the small figure on the left waiting her turn at the top of the slide.