What do you do when it's Fall Break, your original plans of being on a beach fall through and your husband is out of town, your best friend works with kids every day, but has two days off AND you have a van?
You beg her to to take her kids to the zoo ... an hour and a half away!
AND she agrees!
You can just say that this picture signifies us livin' the dream.
That was before we pulled the car out of the garage and we actually LEFT for our destination.
If I remember correctly, eight seconds after this was taken, two kids started crying and two other kids were mad about someone touching the iPad.
But an hour and a half flew by, thanks to good conversation with my road pal, and Sloane's excellent bottle-feeding skills and ability to cheer up any baby/toddler.
Our first stop was lunch. We unloaded five kids at Dairy Queen, somehow everyone got food (and no ice cream because that wouldn't have been a disaster waiting to happen before the zoo), and we didn't leave anyone behind (though I contemplated leaving Reece).
We made it to the zoo, the zoo that is only an hour and a half from where I grew up in southeast Kansas, but the zoo that I had NEVER been to. Apparently when I came to Tulsa, I came to either fly out/in or shop.
But our first task, once getting paid and through the gate, was an attempt to get both Stacey children to stay fully clothed (I just HAD to snap a pic)! :)
Then we checked to see who was most-monkey like. My kids won that.
So proud.
And since we came to the zoo to see the cool animals, the first thing we had to do was ...
Ride the carousel and the train.
I told Jenna, since we had already threatened the kids about 87 times already that day, that maybe by letting them on the rides at the beginning would be reverse psychology...
"HEY! If we let you go on these now, you have to be good the rest of the day!"
And that's the funniest parenting lie you'll ever hear from me!
So on the train we went. The three amigos in the front and the rest of the ya-hoos in the back.
We managed to make it to the Children's Zoo, where my kids felt right at home -- they just had spent the weekend at their grandpa's farm, touching all sorts of smelly creatures so this goat was nothing!
Sloane had brought a "bag of stuff" into the zoo and when we got to the giraffe exhibit, she dug around and found her stuffed giraffe, that she had specifically brought to show the real giraffes.
As you can see, they got a kick out of it. ;)
One of Reece's many attempts at leading us through the zoo! Jenna tore the map in half at one point to give one half to Anna and the other to Reece and she saw the wrath of Reece come out. Thank God our second copy of the map wasn't too far away! :)
See this girl on the right? Yeah. This is precious Anna who was voted No. 1 child by the adults this trip! I told her many times that she could have anything she wanted, she just had to ask! Luckily the girl doesn't have many words yet or I probably would have had to buy her the gift shop.
After taking the iPad away from the boys, and eventually giving it to Sloane, and Max asking Jenna approximately 12 times when he was going to get the iPad back, everyone but Sloane, Jenna and myself fell asleep just until we pulled back into town.
Three things happened on this trip:
- Parenting kids -- the good and the bad -- is tough, but EVERYONE is dealing with something, so when you think you're alone, you're most definitely not.
- We should have left the boys at home.
- Memories were made!
It was a long day and another one where I felt like I spent 75 percent
of it telling my kids to stop doing something or to start listening -
totally normal day for me. But I was so thankful that Jenna and her crew
were able to come along!
Now... what to do today...
XXOO,
Allyson
