Shallowford Presbyterian Youth

So as it turns out, the booming metropolis of Columbia, SC actually has a pretty decent zoo. As the kids piled off the bus, some of them griping and moaning about being at a zoo, (I mean it was only a little rain) we quickly ran into our new friend Boris the grizzly bear and the kids were excited for the rest of the afternoon.




Feeding and maybe even a little french kissing of giraffes, hand feeding lorakeets, a walk-through kangaroo exhibit, birds of all kinds, lions and tigers, elephants playing in the mud. We saw it all. While the rains came and went, it kept most of the other park visitors away so we had much of the place to ourselves in the morning before the entire South Carolina school system showed up at lunchtime when the place turned into something like a cross between Escape from Alcatraz and Zoobreak!


I didn't want to bore you with too many animal pictures but if you want to see the rest of the pictures from the zoo, check out this album:

Columbia Zoo Album

After the zoo it was just a short ride to Beth Shiloh Presbyterian Church in York, SC. Emily's good friends were there to meet us and make us feel at home. After a quick warm up we had an all american dinner of hamburgers, hotdogs and all the fixings. If you're not supposed to swim for 30 minutes after eating, I'm pretty sure some of those kids shouldn't be singing 15 minutes after eating two chili dogs and two hamburgers, but they managed to pull it off.



We sang for around 75 people from the York and  Rock Hill areas and battled through short rehearsal time, the sniffles from our zoo trip, some upset stomachs, and music pages that just wouldn't turn to put on a great show. They even surprised us afterwards with cupcakes and pies, ice cream and other sweets. It's amazing how kids can rally from an upset stomach just in time for cake and ice cream!