The past few weeks have been a wild rumpus of weather. Pouring rain, freezing rain, freezing fog, snow and ice. The chimpanzees have been troopers, and even boss lady Jamie has been handling the interruption in walks around Young’s Hill relatively well. But they relish every chance they get to stretch their bodies and minds in between the late autumn storms.

This week we’ve had a couple of beautifully bright, sunny mornings with warmer temperatures (meaning above freezing) and Jamie, Missy, Annie and Foxie, in particular, have been heading outside after breakfast to run, leap, climb and explore. J.B. and I both captured some of the happenings.

Missy (foreground) and Annie (background) both bipedal before they sprinted off through the bamboo in a game of chase.

Annie (L) and Missy (R):

I love Missy’s play face in this one:

Foxie and France Dora pass by on their way to explore:

Missy contemplates her next move:

Foxie and her beloved new France Dora decide to take a climb and see what they can see:

You can just see the river that runs below the sanctuary in the top left corner.

Jamie has made sure we are making the most of every single walkable moment with the weather breaks. The forecast is predicting a snow storm beginning tonight and through tomorrow so maybe she knows there’s no time to waste.

And with the holidays fast approaching, all is abuzz as we begin preparations for the chimps’ holiday celebration. Donations, gifts from our Wishlist for the chimps and humans alike, and holiday cards full of love and good wishes have been pouring in! And trolls! So many trolls for Foxie! We are constantly astounded by your generosity and are so full of gratitude to you all! And we would like to share a special thank you for long-time supporter, Diana Petri, for her amazingly generous gift of the new office computers Diana and I put on the Wishlist! Diana has been patching hers together for months and mine is an old PC that has been making crazy noises when it’s forced to wake up in the morning, so to say we are excited is an understatement.

But most importantly, each one of your gifts, whether for the chimpanzees, or to help the humans care for the chimpanzees, not only provides for their direct quality care, but allows us to focus more funds toward maintaining a secure future and beginning our exciting plans for expansion and growing our chimpanzee family. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you to each and every one of you who have given your support, in whatever form that has come. Every single thought, dollar and gift makes an immense difference to the chimpanzees’ lives, both now and in the future.

And to get in the spirit of the season, I will leave you with this moment from today captured by Anna. Foxie, her new France Dora (out of sight, but who was being passed back and forth between us) and I sat down to watch “A Charlie Brown Christmas” this afternoon. The sweet Vince Guaraldi music is some of my favorite to listen to this time of year (not to mention seeing, and okay, yes, mimicking the Peanuts characters’ dancing scene) and as Foxie loves music and dancing I thought the show might be right up her alley. Sure enough, the second she heard the music she smiled and started head-bobbing along.

Happiest of holiday seasons to all of you!