Spring Break Adventure - Wild Wilderness Drive-Through Safari

On Sunday morning, we checked out of our hotel then met up with Heather and Stephen and drive out to the Wild Wilderness Drive Through Safari in Gentry, Arkansas.

When we first got there, we went through the drive through safari. This is one is different than the drive through zoos that we'd been to before because they don't allow you to feed or interact with the animals in the drive through part. 

But this camel ... came right up to my window and he was so cute and friendly. I rolled down my window to pet him just for a minute and the kids got so mad! Noah said I should use #rulebreaker again. But this camel wanted to be petted. I. Couldn't. Resist. 

This safari had a lot of interesting animals like this big boy rhino. Or could be a girl, I guess.

Also this hippo. And not a little hippo either. I don't know if I've ever been so close to a hippopotamus. And seriously, why is hippopotamus so hard to spell? 

They also had a lot of prairie dogs. I mean A LOT. And they were right out in the middle of the pasture with the other big animals. I don't know if their presence was coincidental or planned, but they were literally right along the driveway. 

After we finished up the drive through, we got to go through the petting zoo. At first, we ended up petting the animals in the naughty pen and it turns out we were not supposed to be there. But then we went over to pet the goats and baby calves then on to the kangaroos. How cool is that?!

We got to feed the kangaroos. Some of them had joeys in their pouches. 

The petting zoo area also had two giraffes that we got to pet and feed.

Those giraffes are smart. They know exactly who has the food and who doesn't. And if you don't have a treat for them, they don't want anything to do with you. 

There were really a lot of animals in the walk through and petting area. I don't even remember them all, I'm sure. But they have peacocks, giant tortoises, llamas, a lot of different kinds of snakes, several kinds of monkeys. 

Noah even touched a boa constrictor. 

 

After we got finished at Wild Wilderness, we headed to lunch at Shogun. We sat at the grill and watched the cooking show while we ate. We a had a lot of fun with Heather and Stephen.

But then it was time to drive home. What else do you have to do a long drive besides take a selfie? Silly kids!

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Easter Breakfast: Fruit Pizza

On Easter morning, we had fruit pizza for breakfast. This recipe is so easy to make ahead and is really delicious and cute. 

Here's the recipe I used.

Ingredients:

• 2 rolls refrigerated sugar cookie dough
• 8 oz cream cheese
• 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
• Small tub Cool Whip, 8 oz
• Assorted fruit
• 1 cup fruit juice
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3 tsp cornstarch

Spread 2 rolls refrigerated sugar cookie dough into a sheet pan. Bake for approximately 14 minutes until the cookie crust is slightly browned. Let cool.

In a small bowl, combine the cream cheese and powdered sugar. Add Cool Whip.  Spread over cooled crust.

Top with fruit. I used bananas, strawberries, blueberries, peaches and kiwi. You can use pretty much any fruit that you like, either fresh or canned. I used canned peaches and everything else was fresh.

Glaze: In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine fruit juice, sugar, and cornstarch. Whisk until mixture comes to a boil and thickens a bit. Spoon over fruit pizza.

Refrigerate overnight or until ready to serve.

This recipe can be customized to your liking. I accidentally picked up one roll of sugar cookie dough and one roll of chocolate chip cookie dough so I just used what I had.  It was still good.

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Spring Break Adventure - Bowling and Good Food

After our visit to The Amazeum, we were starving so we headed right over to Mellow Mushroom for lunch. Emily and I had been here before, but it had been a while.  Mike and I shared a Mighty Meaty and the kids shared a cheese pizza. Let's just say we were very please with our lunch. Mike and I both thought the pizza was better than our normal local pizza place back home.

I forgot to take a pic of our adventure until after I'd finished eating. Oops.

After lunch, we headed over to a local bowling center to bowl a couple games. I didn't do a very good job of taking pictures. Sometimes I get so caught up in our activity that I forget to pull out my phone and take pictures. 

 I don't remember who won the game, but it was definitely not me. We eventually had to go get Noah a bowling ramp to use because his ball was having a hard time making it all the way down to the end. 

During the second game, we were all getting pretty tired and I was tired of my ball rolling off into the gutter every time so I put up the bumpers on my turn. Haha. We had fun.

After bowling, we went back to our hotel to lay down for a little bit. Then we went to Compton Gardens to see if we could find some daffodils or spring flowers.  We walked around for a bit and saw some flowers, but it wasn't really the type of garden that I was expecting. It was still fun, but Noah's legs were tired.

Saturday night, we grabbed some burgers with Heather and Stephen. The kids knew that we were going to see "my friends" at some point on our adventure, but they didn't know who it was going to be. I think they both suspected that it was going to be Heather and Stephen, but I'd never say. It was really fun to see them and spend some time with them. 

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Spring Break Adventure - Amazeum

At the end of our spring break, we made a last-minute decision to take a weekend trip to Northwest Arkansas. We drove up after work on Friday and checked into our hotel. On the way to the hotel, we noticed that there was a Krispy Kreme right down the street. We hadn't had a Krispy Kreme in our area for the last few years so we immediately knew what we were going to have for breakfast.

On Saturday morning, we woke up early and Mike and Emily went to get our Krispy Kreme. We at them in the hotel then headed over to our first stop - The Amazeum.  The Amazeum is sort of like a science museum and it has different learning/exploring sections sponsored by different corporations. 

I knew from what I'd read about the Amazeum online that Emily was on the cusp of being too old to enjoy a lot of the activities, but one thing that I though she would really be into was the Hershey's Lab, where you get a chance to do an experiment with chocolate and/or candy. 

The Hershey's Lab is free, but you have to get a ticket for a specific time. All the tickets are available at the beginning of the day, but the first hour is open to members only. I wasn't sure how quickly the tickets for the Hershey's Lab would go so we got there right before the museum opened so that we would have a better chance to get a ticket. I wanted to make sure we got to do this activity for Emily.

Noah, on the other hand, loved all the exhibits. He's very independent and doesn't mind running off without us. 

"Ohhh, the tornado is going to take me away!"

I felt like a lot of the exhibits were well put together and really fun. 

And of course, Emily did find some fun things that she enjoyed doing. 

Noah loved this painting exhibit. You paint on the glass then use a spray bottle of water to wash it all off for the next person. Messy, but fun.

They also had an outside play area with a few different play areas. Noah wasn't scared a bit on this jungle gym.

The water play area was very fun, too. Again, things seemed to be really clean and the activities were set up in a way that let kids play without a lot of parent involvement.

We were able to get a ticket for the Hershey's Lab. We got to play a game about how Hershey's chocolate is made. It wasn't really the type of "experiment" I was expecting, but it wasn't bad. And we got to eat a tiny bit of chocolate.

Overall, the Amazeum was really neat and we had a lot of fun there. I would definitely recommend it if you're in the area.

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Easter Nest Cake

Last week, I had Easter on my mind so I made this cute Nest Cake.  I loosely followed this recipe that I found online.  I made mine with a lemon bundt cake and cream cheese frosting.

I filled my nest cake with Robin's Eggs and peanut butter M&M's eggs.

Noah doesn't particularly like coconut so he mostly ate the candy, but everyone else liked it.

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Easter Bunny Racers

In my Sunday School class, we made some Easter Bunny Racers for a craft/snack. They are so easy and so cute! The hardest part for the kids was not cutting the Twinkie all the way through. I used a can of vanilla frosting to hold the wheels (mini oreos) and the steering wheel (pretzel) in place. And they only have to look cute for about a minute before you eat them.



We some leftover parts so the kids got to make some at home, too.


See? I told you they don't last long!


Yum!

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Emily and Noah Blog: Easter Baskets

Emily: 3 words. It. Was. Awesome! I got white high top Converse shoes, sunglasses, mechanical pencils, a water bottle, a Peekaboo (it holds your phone.) Its name is Uni - Unibrow! Haha. I also got Bath and Bodyworks stuff. I got a beach towel, beach ball, and frisbees. And of course LOTS OF CANDYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!


Noah: So, I got a fluffy bunny. I got beach things! I got a beach ball, eggs, candy, Donatello and a T-Rex, movie tickets, and Peeps! I also got a C3PO tsum tsum, 2 movies, headphones, shoes and a whole lot more. It was awesome. P.S. This golden egg is super fun. It has a Warren (movie) ticket inside. Wow. P.P.S. You can watch a movie while holding it and you can watch Justin Bieber's music while putting headphones on. Thank you Easter Bunny! Hallelujah!


Emily: WOW! He must have had too much candy because he has gone CRAZY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Happy Easter!

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter. He is risen indeed!

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Spring Weekend Adventure - Davis Oklahoma

The other weekend, we took a day trip down to the Davis, Oklahoma, area. Our first stop was the Bedre Fine Chocolate factory. The production line was not running when we were there, but they have floor to ceiling windows from the gift shop and we got to see all the equipment that they use to make chocolates. 

We also got some chocolate to eat. Noah got a chocolate in the shape of Oklahoma. Emily got some gummy bears. Yeah, I don't understand it either. I got a white chocolate egg. And Mike got some dark chocolate covered potato chips. 

We also stopped at the Chickasaw Nation Welcome Center, which is next door. It has a lot of items made by people of the Chickasaw Nation - foods, candles, artwork, books, artifacts, etc.  Very neat and interesting to see.

Then we headed over to Arbuckle Wilderness drive through park to feed the animals. This is something we really enjoy doing, but it's very expensive to get in. I made sure we bought plenty of food to feed the animals. They gave us the food in a plastic shopping bag and I let Noah carry it out to the car, but he accidentally dropped it outside on the steps and it went all over. BOO! We picked up as much as we could and it was all fine.

There were not a lot of people at the park when we were there so we got to go through at our own speed and stop whenever we wanted. We spent a lot of time trying to feed the giraffe. There was an ostrich standing right beside the giraffe's pen. Those thing will peck your eyes out! So Mike lured the ostrich over to his side of the car so that Emily and Noah and I could try to feed the giraffe. So fun.

Noah likes to hold his cup out the window and just let the animals eat as much as they want. That's why I bought a whole bag of food this time.  He looks all happy because the animals love him!

I get so caught up in feeding the animals that I forget to take many pictures, but the zebras are always neat to see. Their stripes are as unique as our fingerprints. 

Before we left the park, we had to stop by the playground for a few minutes. It was such a pretty day. 

They have some unique items on their playground like this wooden train.

And also this wooden monster truck. 

One the way home, we stopped by Jo's Famous Pizza in Purcell. We took some selfies while we were waiting for our food. 

Isn't she so pretty?

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Labor Day Adventure - Fossil Rim Wildlife Center

So, I'm finally getting back to finishing up the recap of or Labor Day trip. I don't know why it's so hard for me to blog these days.  I guess I'm never completely sure what to say.  Can't I just post the thousand pictures and be done with it?

After Dinosaur World, we grabbed lunch then headed to Fossil Rim Wildlife Center.  Fossil Rim is one of those drive-thru zoo places.  We've been to a couple places like this and we all really enjoyed it.  We'd heard some good things about this one so we were excited to try it out.

When we got there, we went into the gift shop to pay our admission and get some animal food.  One of the ladies at the counter mentioned that they had about 750 cars going through there the prior day.  That sounded like a lot.  Then when we drove through the checkpoint, the woman gave her little spiel then said "Okay, we'll see you right back here in about 3 hours."  I thought, "Oh fun!  That's a nice long drive-thru zoo.  Lots to see."

And there was definitely lots to see.  Lots of deer.  

And lots of other kinds of deer.  All kinds of deer.  Big ones, little ones.  Big horns, little horns.

Another deer!  Oh wait, that's dear Noah.  

There were really a lot of cars.  And a lot of people spent a lot of time feeding all the deer that would come up to the vehicle.  Like, a long time.  Feeding all the deer.   Catch my drift? 

They had quite a few giraffes that were really cool to see.  They couldn't come up to the cars to get a bite to eat, but they were very neat.

The fact that the giraffes didn't want to come eat didn't mean the cars would just keep going to find other animals to feed though.  They'd just sit there for like 5 minutes ... waiting ... blocking the road ... with a couple dozen cars sitting "patiently' behind them.

Of course, the deer wanted to eat!

As we approached the 3 hour mark, I was getting pretty impatient with all the cars and the lines not moving. In a few areas, there were signs that said "Stay in your vehicle or get escorted out."  This started sounding like a incredibly good option.  #rulebreaker

We eventually did make it out of there though and I was so glad. It was a fun trip, but just way too many cars on that particular day.

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