Is it still camping if you sleep in a cabin?

We were in the woods and we all came home with chigger bites, so I'm going to say yes!

Our landlady owns a campground about an hour and a half north of where we live and she invited us to come and stay the night one Thursday night.  She knows Hubby has Fridays off and she usually doesn't have anyone renting the cabin we stayed in on a Thursday.  We decided to go ahead and go this last Thursday as one more fun thing before we all started back to school tomorrow. 



 When we got there we all piled in her ATV and she took us on a tour around the area.  It really is beautiful up there.  Hubby and I both really enjoy camping and being in the woods.  This was a nice time for us to be able to spend together as a family without it costing a bunch of money.  We have been thankful for having a wonderful landlady before, but now we're also thankful she is willing to let us stay in her cabin every once in a while as well!

Friday morning we had decided to go see the waterfalls that our landlady kept telling us about.  She asked if she could come along since she hadn't been to see them in about 20 years.  The two waterfalls we got to see were beautiful.  At the second one I even relented and let the girls go down and get their feet wet.  When we go back I will make sure I bring flip flops for all of us so that we aren't trying to put shoes and socks back on wet and muddy feet. 

The hike to and from the waterfalls was a bit more than we were expecting, but it wasn't too bad.  We'll be better prepared next time.  All the girls were troopers.  Even #4 only asked to be carried a couple of times.  #3 was literally running circles around the rest of us.  Gotta love a 6 year old!

It was a quick trip, we weren't even up there 24 hours, but it was worth it!  We're already looking forward to the next time we get to go back.  As #4 keeps saying, "We're going to the cabin tomorrow, right?"

#1 Turns 11

#1 turned 11 just a few days after we got back from California.  Because of that we kept it pretty low key, but my Mom and Dad were both able to be here which made it special for her.  Mom and Dad hadn't been to our place since they helped us move in so it was nice to have them here for a couple of days when they could see the house as we live in it now, not full of boxes!

We started #1's birthday by going to an early lunch at PF Changs.  This is my favorite place to eat and #1 really likes it to. She had asked before if that could be her birthday dinner with the family, but we told her no because it was too expensive.  But then the other plans we had for her birthday fell through so we decided to splurge a little and go for lunch.  We all enjoyed it. 

Grammy, #3, Pappy, and #2

Birthday Girl and her Daddy

Some more than others!

After lunch we went and watched Despicable Me 2.  I love those movies!  The second one wasn't as funny as the first one, but it had minions in it, so it was worth it!  And I got to go to a funny movie with my Dad, which is always entertaining.  If you ever get to watch Toy Story with him, do it.  You'll laugh harder at him than you will the movie!

The next day we went bowling.  Um, is anyone aware of how expensive bowling is now?  We all really love going and would do it more often if it didn't cost $60 for 2 hours for our family.  Good grief!  Do they sell annual passes or anything, because it is almost as expensive as going to a theme park.  But we did have fun, despite the last 30 minutes or so being the glow ball bowling, where they turn off the lights and everything is lit with black lights.  Yeah, the adults used that as our excuse for not scoring well.  Whatever helps us sleep at night!

And for dinner that night I made the girls' favorite meal--sweet and sour chicken and fried rice.  I think I've finally figured out a technique to make it where it is not quite as much work, but it still requires more effort than I normally like to exert for one meal, especially considering clean up, so it is still going to be an occasional dinner, not one on the regular rotation.

An ice cream cake that she wanted so bad!

Sunday was church and then the parentals had to head home on Monday.  We always miss them when they leave, even after spending three weeks with Mom, but we were thankful for the time we got to spend with them and looked forward to seeing them again.

We didn't buy the zoo--but we went!

Back in March or April Hubby bought a membership for the zoo here in town.  We had one for the last several years in Houston and it always paid for itself in just a few trips.  Our thought process buying one earlier in the year was that we would go when it was still cooler and could enjoy ourselves a little more.  It also helps to go during the week when most kids are in school.   That way we miss out on most of the crowds.

Tigers cuddle too!

Well, we didn't end up going until our school was officially out for the summer.  Most of the public schools went one more week so there wasn't a lot of kids running around, but it was definitely hot!  We packed our lunch, which turned out to be a necessity since apparently they don't open their concessions until public schools are out for the summer.  We found that out when we were all very thirsty at the far end of the park.   Unfortunately, this zoo does not have tables or benches or shade for that matter outside of the zoo to eat at.  So what else could we do but eat in the car?  And we obviously couldn't allow our children to sit in a car that had been sitting in 90 degree heat for several hours without the AC turned on!  We might have lingered a bit more over lunch than what we would have if we had been sitting outside!

 This is a terrible picture, but you know those birds in the Jungle Book that look like vultures?  I always thought they were just normal vultures, but this bird looked exactly like them and it was HUGE!  Probably the second largest bird I've seen other than a condor.  It has the crooked neck just like in the movie and everything.  I stayed there for the longest time just watching it.  It was so ugly it was fascinating!

And it wouldn't be a zoo in Louisiana without a gator or 4!

We did go back in the zoo after lunch to see the second half that we didn't get to before lunch, but it was really warm that day and we were all pretty miserable after just a little bit of time.  So we checked out some of the larger animals that were close to the front and then we were ready to call it a day.  Amazingly enough, when we were walking back out to leave we just happened to pass the kids area where there was a playground.  The younger two girls immediately perked up and wanted to play.  The older two even played a little.  Momma sat in the shade and drank water!

Just because big, white, loud birds are cool!

So we ended the day a little earlier than we planned and we didn't get to see the entire zoo, but that is the absolute best part about having a season pass.  You can go for a couple of hours and then leave and not feel a bit guilty that you didn't get your money's worth.  We'll go back eventually--probably not till about October, but that is still OK.  We have several months to go back as often as we want to.  And besides, the animals come out more in colder weather, right?

Nothing says fun like sticking your hand in a cow's stomach!

Disclaimer--If you have a queasy stomach, proceed with caution.  I have pictures of animal organs and talk about said organs.  Don't say I didn't warn you!

It pays to have friends who have lived in this city all their lives.  Why?  Because they know about all the cool things going on that you normally wouldn't have any idea about.  Yesterday the cool thing was the LSU vet school having their annual open house.  Now normally I would ignore this information because I'm not exactly looking for information about a vet school.  But because this cool friend knew about it she informed me that they actually had a lot of cool things that the kids would love and it was free.  We had no other plans so after looking online to get us exact directions so that we wouldn't get lost in the downtown/college area we took off and met our friends.

The very first room we went in showed several different hearts of animals.  One was a dog's heart.  With heart worms in it.  I've heard a lot about heart worms, but haven't really spent a lot of time of what they might actually look like.  If you are like me, allow me to enlighten you.  They are really skinny worms whose larva are delivered through a mosquito bite that make their way through a dog's body, into his heart and then begin to grow.  The heart that they showed looked like an organ with angel hair spaghetti in it.  It was gross.  My wonderful friend has informed me that she got a picture of all our girls looking at the heart with much interest and I'm in the background horrified.  When she puts in on her blog I will provide a link.  It was gross.

Here our girls are playing with cow and dog eyeballs.  Again, gross.  But being the good mother that I am when #4 wanted to touch one I put a glove on her and held her up so she could hold one.  And being the mean mother that I am I made #1 pick it up again so I could take a picture when she was clearly horrified to be touching it.  What can I say, she needed some more science.

This is all #3 wanted to have with the eyeballs.

Another fun room was where they had two cows set up with a hole in their side that you could stick your hand into its stomach.  #2's face pretty much sums it up.  Never one to pass up a learning experience, I asked the people there why the cows had holes in their stomachs.  I figured they had to do surgery because they were sick.  Turns out they do it because if they have another sick cow come in they can take the digested food out of these cow's stomachs and give it to the sick cows and it supposedly has the right amount of bacteria and nutrition to help the sick cow get better.  See how educational this day was?  And just in case you're wondering, the girls didn't actually touch anything in the stomach.  I however looked inside it and it wasn't gross or slimy.  It looked like a barrel full of mulched alfalfa.  The smell was pretty bad though.

Can't have a vet school open house without some cute baby animals to pet.  And let me tell you, those vet school students were so excited to be holding these animals so all the crazy children could go by in a line and pet them. 

Last, but in no way least, the heart and lung of a cow.  But it isn't just any old lung laying there on a table.  Oh no, they have it hooked up to a machine that makes it move like air is going in and out of it.  #4 had to touch it.  She was fearless and wanted to touch everything all day.  I'm pretty sure #1 and #2 touched it as well.  This was the only organ I touched.  It was actually very soft and squishy.  And yes, squishy is a scientific word.  I know because the vet student used it to describe the lung while trying to convince me to touch it!

All in all, it was a really fun day.  Now that I'm in the know, we'll make sure and go back every year!