St. Louis Vacation, Day 8...

We definitely slept in today... and then found ourselves running to catch breakfast before it closed at 9:30! After this many days of HIE breakfast, even I am getting tired of it, which is saying something!

This was our day for the St. Louis Zoo, and it was Ian who got very excited when we announced where we were going! We have found that it is a little bit difficult to come up with activities that everyone is excited about at this point due to the age difference in kids (I think I probably mentioned that earlier in the week, but exhaustion is taking over, so I'm likely to begin repeating myself... and repeating myself... OK... not so funny...) When we said that we were headed to the zoo, however, Ian nearly jumped out of his booster seat and immediately said that he wanted to see the elephants! Caleb is usually our elephant lover, so I was slightly surprised. Caleb, too, seemed happy with our destination of the day. Grace put up with it. Seth reminded me several times of how bored he was throughout the next few hours, by asking Miah is she was as bored as he...

I have to say that I was quite impressed by the size of the zoo, the variety of animals, and the attempt at making the animals' habitats as natural as possible. It was beautiful. The elephant exhibit was especially nice and large, including a river and waterfall, as well as several different viewing areas. As expected, Caleb was quite pleased and ready to leave after he saw the "Ellies"... When Phil asked Ian what he thought of the elephants, Ian replied that they were stupid! So... uh... go figure...

My only complaint was that the day was incredibly hot... and heat tends to make me sort of... uh... crabby... I hit several misting fans on our short trip, which helped a bit. The penguin exhibit was also especially cold, so we stayed in there for quite awhile! It's the kind of zoo that I would definitely enjoy revisiting in late October!

We ran through the Wendy's drive-thru for dinner, returned to the hotel, took another dip in the pool, and now everyone under 5 feet tall is sleeping... finally... after some wiggly bedtime antics!

I am getting kinda lazy at this point... just wiped out from the speed of the trip and the heat of the day... so I will post a few highlight pictures and call it a night:

Some of my favorite "wild animals":

The Hippo Was Awesome:

I'm going to make them look at this
every time they forget they love each other:

Caleb And His "Ellie":

Ian Doin' What Ian Does Best...
Being Too Cute:

Miah... and Me... and a Giraffe:

Lisa

Vacationing Close To Home, Part 1...

Phil had some vacation time this week. We took it.

Although we tend to like outlandish, amazing vacations, we're saving that for later in the summer this time around... particularly because we are still exhausted from Miah's arrival, and Miah, herself, is a little young for one of our adventures. I mean, we waited a full five months before subjecting Ian to an entire summer of amusement park fun, and Grace was eight months old before we dragged her through Native American cave dwelling ruins in New Mexico... uh... yeah... we're crazy!

Anyhow...

There are lots of fun things to do close to home, and we're doing them... as day trips... Up first was the Fort Wayne Zoo, lunch at Cheddars, and a trip to the theater to see "Oceans".

The zoo was great. I mean, where else can you hug a Komodo Dragon, sit on a Monkey, ride in a Kangaroo's pouch and be eaten by an Elephant... Oh... wait... those weren't the real, live animals, but we sure enjoyed them anyway... My one complaint about the Fort Wayne Zoo remains that there are no elephants (well, except the skeleton). They do have an amazing assortment of animals that you don't see anywhere else, though. Here's my favorite pic from the day:

Cheddars was yummy, as always, although it is starting to be a trend that I only go there when I am an absolute mess. Ian peed all over his seat, Miah screamed while I ate and fell asleep when I finished, and Caleb and Grace fought about not wanting their place mats to touch... And we still enjoyed our meal... incredible!

"Oceans" was a pretty good experience, minus the fact that I think we just taught our kids that they descended from sea creatures. Seriously, though, the views of the oceans were fantastic, and I would recommend the movie. I would probably not recommend taking a three year old, because it is hard for little people to sit through documentaries, and there are only so many fish that can be compared to Nemo and Dory...

We came home to sleep and are off for another day of surprises tomorrow!

Lisa

Summer Adventures...

... Are Wearing Me Out!

I'm behind... again... as far as blogging goes. Seems that I never stop running long enough to sit down and write about it here lately!

Last week, Phil, Seth, and Grace went off to camp, so Caleb, Ian, and I decided we needed an adventure of our own. On Monday our plans were kind of thrown for a loop, and we ended up just hanging around home most of the day and then goin' to "The Rat Place" (AKA Chuck-E-Cheese) in the evening. We spent tons of tokens, earned relatively few tickets, and came home with lots of prizes, because the girls working the prize counter thought the boys were super cute!

On Tuesday we headed to the Fort Wayne Children's Zoo, which we enjoyed a lot. Ordinarily, I do not "splurge" on rides when we visit the zoo. However, since there were only three of us it made the prices a little more reasonable, so we rode everything! It was on the "Sky Safari" that it occurred to me that although I have never been afraid of heights, I do have a pretty huge fear of falling from high places... particularly while holding on to two small, wiggly children! Caleb actually did a pretty job sitting still once I explained to him exactly how I expected him to position himself and not to move. Ian... well, that's another story... Unfortunately, I have almost no pictures of the animals (except the ones that live at my house). I had a pretty good pic. of Caleb with the lion, but when I downloaded it must have gotten lost in the process. Thinking everything had transferred alright, I erased all of the images from the camera... ugh! I do have some nice pics. of us on the rides and exploring the zoo:

After the other half of our family returned home, we spent a couple of days cleaning up from camp and then took a trip to Cedar Point!

It was definitely a fun trip, but not "classic" Cedar Point by any stretch of the imagination. This can most accurately be understood by the list of things we did not ride... calypso, turnpike cars, antique cars, cedar downs, raptor, thunder canyon, wave swinger, matterhorn, super himalaya, scrambler, even the carousel (for crying out loud)... not among the things we rode this time around...

However, Seth and Grace hit the 52" mark this year, so they got to experience a whole lot of new things including MaxAir, Wicked Twister, Skyhawk, Power Tower Up and Down, and Magnum for Grace (Seth took his first spin on Magnum last summer). Ian also rode his first coaster (well, unless we count Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, seven months before he was born). His assessment of Woodstock Express was, "I don't wike this wide"... Below are pics. of first time coaster experiences:

Amazingly enough, we actually didn't take a whole lot of pictures while we were there. I guess I've been dropping the ball all summer long in this regard. We did pretty much ride till we dropped, though, and arrived home at 3:15am! My quote of the trip comes from our friend Avalyn, "Lisa... I like that ride... It makes me sick!" How's that for making a new generation of adrenaline junkies...

I can never quite understand why I look so forward to the end of the school year but as we turn the corner into August I am ready for it all to begin again... Not that we are starting in August... NO WAY!!! One of the nice advantages of homeschooling is that we can run a normal school schedule Labor Day to Memorial Day, get all of the work in, ace the placement tests, and enjoy life a little bit! However, I am starting to look forward to the structure that comes along with Fall...

Until then...

Lisa

Spring Break, Trip #2...

... Indy Zoo

I have waited so long to blog this one, that the story has lost some of it's outrageous humor... in my opinion...

Let's say that I am not real good at navigating in Indy...

Let's say that I was so desperate to get out of the house that I took my four kids plus another one to the zoo in the pouring rain...

But ya know... It made for a good day...

At one point, a poncho clad woman with a small army of kids around her pointed in our direction and said, "See, that lady's here with five kids. I'm not crazy!" I responded by yellin' back to her, "That doesn't necessarily mean you're not crazy!" I smiled. I don't think she did...

The highlight of my day was gettin' to see the baby bears...

Beyond that, well... a pic's. worth more words than I can actually remember about the trip at this point:

Lisa

We Made It To The Zoo This Time!

We had a wonderful adventure at the zoo with our friends!

Some Highlights:
*Aubrie liked "swimming" with the fish...
*It was almost more fun to watch Amber pet the sharks than the kids...
*The Christmas lights were amazingly beautiful...
*The holiday train exhibit was really fun (especially for Phil and Caleb)...
*We learned that if you pretend you didn't read the "no strollers" sign you can bring your strollers into the dolphin underwater viewing area...

Some... uh... Lowlights:
*It was cold...
*The Zoo's Christmas activities were mostly Santa Claus related (which... I mean... Santa's OK and everything... I'm just gettin' a little burned out on him...), and they all cost additional money...
*We kept waiting for the dolphin show to start... and then it was over...

We seriously had a great time, though, including the 2 + hours it took us to get there (we did a little bit of shopping along the way), and the yummy dinner we had at Chilis afterward (where Ian did an encore presentation of the "shrieking baby" show)...

A picture's worth a thousand words:

Robert, Amber, Avalyn, and Aubrie

The Six of Us... Sort of posing in front of the Christmas Tree...

A collage of some of the highlights...
Oh, did I forget to mention we tied Seth to the train tracks?

Lisa

Take Two...

... Tryin' To Make It To The Zoo Again!

So... last Saturday we set off for the zoo, among other things. All that happened were the other things! We went to mall in search of some elusive Christmas gifts for Grace... which remained elusive... And, in the end, all we bought at the mall was lunch... at Chick-Fil-A...

It was so cold... and so snowy... and so late by the time we left the mall, there was really no point in driving over to the zoo for a couple of frigid hours!

So... off we go again today! Can't say there aren't a couple of stops we have to make along the way, but it's pretty much a lock this time around that the main attraction will be the zoo!

By the way... one party down, five to go. I thought the FNF party last night went rather well... better than last year, for sure!

And did I forget to mention it's finals week? I am so going to love next week, but the grass is always greener, right?

Lisa