Wild Animal Safari

Here's some more pictures of us at the Wild Animal Safari. The previous post has more info. We went to the Wild Animal Park on Friday of our Spring Break this year.

Spring Break

We did a different activity every day of the week during spring break.

On Monday we planted our garden-we got the ground all ready and repaired the frame around the garden and then planted beans, peas, carrots, corn, cucumbers, melons and strawberries. The kids had alot of fun helping with that.

On Tuesday, we went on a 2 1/2 mile hike on Pine Mountain -the longest hike we've ever taken our kids on, and they did it! It was a little tough on William. Tom and I had to take turns carrying him, but for the most part, he hiked it. We can't wait until our kids are older and we can do longer hikes.

Wednesday was pool day. We all worked on our pool to get it ready for summer- the kids loved doing that. We got all the leaves and debris out of it from the winter, scrubbed the sides and floor of it, and refilled it. Since it's a big pool, it was a big job, but the kids were happy to play in the water as we did it.

Thursday we went to the National Infantry Museum and walked around it. What an amazing and inspiring place that is. We'll have to take family there when they visit. It's huge and full of all sorts of interesting displays. It was even interesting to William. We loved it and we're thankful to be so close to it.

Friday we went to the Wild Animal Safari in Pine Mountain. It was better than the Atlanta Zoo! When we pulled in to the parking lot we saw a peacock just walking around in the grass in front of us. He wasn't in a cage or anything, just wandering around. Once we got inside the park, we did what they call the "walk about" where you basically go and look at the animals in their cages like at the Zoo. It was neat, except for when Alan got "sprayed" by the Tiger. Eww. I guess he didn't like us looking at him... Then we went on a "safari" where we got to drive through this 3 mile (I think) land where the animals just roam and come right up to your car window and eat out of your hand! The kids were scared at first when the big cows would come and stick their heads in our car window. But they had tons of fun.

Saturday we went with the Primary in our Ward to the Temple. I already put up a post about that, and it was such a special experience. It was beautiful and even the littlest children in our primary could feel how sacred the Temple is.

Sunday, Alan and I spoke in church. This was Alan's first talk he gave in Sacrament meeting that wasn't part of the Primary Program. He spoke on "Keeping the commandments" He wrote the entire talk himself and included lots of scriptures. Afterwards, he said he was scared at first, but then he said as he kept talking, it became kind of fun! That's my boy. :)

Kaitlyn's class field trip

Kaitlyn recently got a chance to meet her teacher and other classmates on a field trip to the Columbus Space Science Center. For those of you who don't know, she's enrolled in the Georgia Cyber Academy, and I'm her learning coach. It's a public school and the school sends us all the curriculum materials for free. I really like it because she has a teacher that I can talk with and ask for help with anything we need, but I'm the one who does the teaching. They have outings and "meet ups" all the time. It's perfect for us right now.

Here's a picture of her and William playing with the "mars cars" at the museum. I wanted to get a picture of the whole group, but we had to leave early. There were probably 15 kids there with parents. It was fun.

Valentine's Day at Chez La Rose

When I was growing up my brothers and I would make dinner for my parents on their anniversary and turn our family room into a private restauraunt. My mom was always in on it, and if I remember correctly it was her idea the first time we did it. It became a family tradition every year on their anniversary. My older brother would make the meal, I would make some fancy looking menus, my other brothers would act as waiters, and bus boys, etc. I have fond memories of doing this.
Now, my own children really love playing restauraunt. They play it constantly and we even have videos of them playing restauraunt with each other. (It helps that their mom makes wooden play food:) So, I thought the perfect thing to do for Valentine's day would be to have them help me make a surprise restauraunt for Tom and I. They loved the idea! We got to work cleaning up the spare bedroom and creating the "atmosphere". We brought an old round table that I dont use any more and covered it with a red table cloth. I bought some heart shaped candles and made up some menus for the new restauraunt, "Chez la Rose". I made the meal, but I let the kids serve it. Tom was totally surprised, and we had a nice (semi) quiet, private Valentine's Dinner. The kids loved it so much they want to do it again another time. I'm sure we will.

Time to catch up...

To say I've been busy would be... well... repetitive... since I always say I'm busy. But, I think I might've reached a tipping point in the past few months, and the blog has suffered. Which is sad because this is what I'm using as a family journal of sorts. I've started publishing each year in a blog book, and I don't like to leave things out. But, so far this year, I have. So, because I have a lot of catching up to to do, I'm going to post some things that we've done in the past few months that don't really fit, but I don't want to leave them out.