July 11, 2008
July 4th Fun
Posted in Family
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We decided to take a mini family vacation over the three-day weekend last week. We live only 1.5 hours from the zoo and a really cool children's museum. So we headed out early Friday morning and grabbed breakfast at McDonald's. (I was craving Atlanta Bread, but can you believe they had the audacity to be closed on July 4th?!?) It was so early, that all three kids napped on the way up.   And while they slept, Brady and I took a few self-portraits.  Our first stop in Columbia was Riverbanks Zoo. When we were there in May, we bought a family membership, so the cost was excellent. We also invited some friends to use some of our guest passes and spend the day. The kids had a lot of fun feeding giraffes...  Acting like penguins...  And checking out the fish...  Because we had been to the zoo just a month and a half before, I spent some more time this trip photographing the zoo creatures (instead of my creatures). A one month old lion cub:  Some corn snakes (and their skins):   A frilled lizard...the kids tried really hard to scare him so he would show off his frill, but he was just one chilled out lizard:  And finally, this clown fish was swimming in and out of his anenome and reminded me so much of Marlin in Finding Nemo, "In, out, in, out."  Here are just a few more random shots of our zoo trip. Braden and his best friend, Sarah:  Benjamin tracing a model snake:  All three of our boys with Sarah:  And a nice family shot:  Benjamin catching a ride:  Riverbanks Zoo also has a botannical garden that we took the tram up to see. I love sunflowers and wanted a picture with them. Braden decided he wanted to play photographer and Ethan was sleeping in the stroller, so we got a partial family shot:  And these flowers looked awfully familiar, so we took a picture of them, too.  We left the zoo and went to our hotel and took advantage of the indoor pool. Then we had dinner at Red Robin, an excellent restaurant, recommended by friends. Then despite the rainy weather, we found some local fireworks and celebrated our country's freedom. Saturday found us heading to the Edventure Children's Museum, a wonderfully, fabulous place for kids to learn and explore. We started off exploring Eddie, a "40-foot, 17.5-ton, hands-on exhibit, made of reinforced, molded plastic, large enough for adults and children to climb in and through." Here's Eddie with our boys:  We climbed all the way up Eddie's spine, stopping off at his stomach, heart, and head. Our boys loved diving through the contents of Eddie's stomach. I think he needs to see a doctor about his digestion issues:   Next we headed to the World of Work, where our kids got to role play lots of different jobs. We had firemen:   Farmers:    Auto mechanics:  Construction workers:   And grocery store clerks (and shoppers.) This was my favorite room!    After lunch, we headed over to Body Works. Here kids learn all about the different parts of their body, health and nutrition. Ethan sampling a "watermelon" in the cafe area:  A giant game of Operation:  Upstairs, they have a music room, a room to experiment with air, a newsroom and a an exhibit about Timbuktu. Benjamin riding a camel:  Braden trying out a motor bike:  Our news anchors:  And the weatherman:  The museum also has two outdoor areas. One is all about water and the temporary bubble exhibit. I completely forgot to take pictures there. The other outdoor area has a huge spider web to climb.  We packed a TON of activity into two very short days, but as always our kids had a blast and so did we! |
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July 11, 2008 - Untitled Comment
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