Safari Zoo

We made the trip up north to Caney, Kansas twice over the summer to visit the Safari Zoo. It is a great place and a one of a kind experience. You can tell that the workers there love their jobs and the animals. They have taken care of many of these animals since birth and can tell you all sorts of info about them including their likes and dislikes etc.....amazing how even animals can have personalities of their own.

 One of the things the kids enjoy the most at this zoo is feeding the monkeys animal crackers. These ringtail lemurs are tame enough that they let the kids actually hand them the crackers and they will take it from their hands.

 

Nothing like getting close and personal with an alligator. They let us all touch the alligators tail. There's not very many places that you get to do that.

 Here the tour guide is feeding the tigers raw chicken. This gives us the chance to see these animals up close and see how tall they are and how big their teeth and paws are.

 This is called the Tiger Splash. They throw a whole raw chicken into the water and the 3 tigers will jump into the water after the chicken.

It's pretty obvious that these guys love their job. Both times we went the owner pulled out different animals for us to see up close and hand crackers too. 

Baby white tiger only 3 weeks old

 Baby leopard only 2 weeks old

 

Kojo the Gizzly Bear

This zoo even has hyenas which I thought was pretty cool.....and when the tour guide holds up the raw chicken the hyenas will actually start making noise that sounds like laughing.

Swim Lessons

For the month of July, we signed Austin up in swim lessons....at 8:30 am.  I figured getting up and ready that early would give us some good practice for the upcoming school year. For the first 2 weeks Austin was in Starfish.

 Some of the things he worked on was back & front floats for 5 seconds unassisted, kicking with legs straight and face in the water for 5 seconds, bobs and bubbles, and jumping into the pool unassisted.

 In this picture he is practicing the "rocket" position as they call it.

 He passed his Starfish class. During the 2nd week I noticed so much improvement in his swimming skills from lessons and swimming out at his grandpa's pool, that I thought we should continue on. So Austin spent the next two weeks in the Seahorse class.

 The second week they took the kids down to the 7 foot deep end. It didn't seem to bother Austin at all. He jumped right into the water and swam back to the side unassisted. He also worked on front/back floats for 10 seconds unassisted, and was able to swim about 3/4 of the length of the shallow pool by himself.

 He is quite the little swimmer and even passed his Seahorse class!!!

After swimming, we would go down to the locker room to change clothes and they loved that! They ran around looking at all the differnt color of locks that were on the locker doors. Somehow they found that fascinating.  

Pioneer Day

The kids had a good time walking around the church with their homemade covered wagons.



Inside Mikayla's covered wagon: Care Bear, Strawberry Shortcake and Plum Pudding.

Inside Austin's covered wagon: Tank, Mario and Luigi

Tender Mercies

Friday, July 22nd......I was having one of those days--those frustrating days. I spend 2 hours trying to get one of those tractor sprinklers to work properly, another couple hours trying to assesmble some covered wagons together for the upcoming Pioneer day, and all day long felt like I was listening to Mikayla wine and that my kids were NOT listening to me. And to top it off, Kayla hit me and kicked me as I tried to rock her to sleep. After finally getting her to sleep I went and laid down next to Austin. As I laid my head next to his he put his hands on my cheeks and said "Mommy, you are very pretty."  I replied "thank you" and then he gave me a hug and said "You're a good mom."

My eyes filled up with tears. How did he know that what was I needed to hear at that precise moment?? 

It was one of those tender mercies from the Lord.

Twinkle Toes

 I sat down to paint my toe nails one afternoon and decided it was time to let Mikayla join in on the fun.

 You may notice 3 sets of feet here and I'm sure you can guess who else got their toe nails painted.

I didn't want him to feel left out. However, I told him that this would be the ONLY time that he gets his toe nails painted and that we would need to take it back off before daddy got home :)



July 7th, 2011

July 4th Celebration

We had a great time celebrating our nation's birthday. On Sat July 2nd we went out to the Vaclaw's farm along with lots of others and watched the firework show.  They do a GREAT job!!!

 

 Notice Mikayla's firework watching position. Last year she hated them. I thought being a year older she would be fine but once again she burried her head in my shoulder and kept her hands over her ears the whole time.

 She did finally manage to unveil one of her eyes.....after it was over. As we were walking back to the car she kept saying "Fireworks scary."

 On July 4th, we did our traditional evening at Craig's Dad's house. We ate some yummy grilled food and then we went swimming.

The kids had fun jumping into the pool....over and over and over again.

 And even more fun was being thrown into the pool

(there goes Connor)

 And Austin.....yikes. Luckily with his life jacket on, nothing phases him.

Austin and Klayton on their dad's shoulders doing chicken fights

 Doing some wrestling while waiting for the Dewey fireworks to start

 We waited and waited and waited....come to find out that they were having some "technical difficulties." Just as we got in the car to drive home they started.....but before we left we were able to watch all of his neighborhood shoot off fireworks which still made for a nice show.

 As the neighbors were setting off their fireworks I started pointed out the different colors I was seeing. Mikayla became a little braver and at first uncovered one of her eyes to watch.

 And eventually, she calmed down and enjoyed the show. 

Happy Birthday America!!!! 

KidsFest

For our 8 year anniversary, Craig's mom watched our kids and sent us down to Tulsa to celebrate. On Friday night she took them to the Kiddie Park and they had lots of fun. Then on Saturday she took them to Woolaroc for KidsFest (along with Jeff & Andrea and their kids). 

 Treasure Hunting in the sand 

 Making beaded necklaces

 Painting rocks

 Riding on a train

 Watching this entertainer who is laying on a bed of nails with children standing on top of him. CRAZY!!

 Petting a baby chic

They had a great time....it's so nice having family around to create special memories with.

Dallas, TX

In June, several of Craig's family traveled down to Texas to have some fun. The first day they went to Six Flags and since Craig isn't much for rollar coasters, he had fun taking Austin and his cousins on the kid rides.

 

 The next day they went to Hurricane Harbor.
Austin's favorite part was the Wave Pool.

It was a great trip and some nice father-son bonding time.

 Meanwhile, I stayed behind and Kambria stayed with me and Mikayla.

 Mikayla enjoyed having Kambria around....probably because she had someone younger to boss around.

We had lots of fun together and quickly became friends.