Dessert at Vacation

Not thinking there are many words needed for this post. We LOVE vacation!!! :)

I SO remember what a BIG deal these colored ice cream cones were growing up. For some reason, it was SUCH a huge treat. Cones are ALWAYS a big deal, but my Grandma bought these colored ones and they were even more special. I love passing on these fun treats to my kids. Building memories.

We made indoor s'mores too -with chocolate graham crackers! YUM! The boys liked them better - I prefer the original myself! :)

Callie was happy with just marshmallows!

All sugared up and ready for bed now! :)

The Safari Zoo - with Tutu!

Since we were less than 2 hours away from my Mom, she was able to come down and visit with us for a little while. We decided to wait for her before going to one of our favorite places ever - The Safari Zoo!!! It was about an hour from where we were staying, but well worth the trip! My poor Mom had no idea what to expect!! I knew it was going to be hilarious!

You drive through this HUGE park (185 acres or something like that) and all these wild animals just roam about. You can buy buckets of food to feed them and pet them as you drive through.

Callie sat in my Mom's lap in the front with me (I was driving). The two of them were hilarious! Not the bravest two girls in the world! :)

This gazelle (is that what it is?) just helped herself right to the food...and I think took mom's bucket. Mom was shocked (to say the least) and probably a bit overwhelmed by the situation. It was HILARIOUS - I just kept laughing and laughing (because I had been totally in her situation when we came 4 years ago!!)

Jacob and David were sitting in the middle row of the van with the door open. Jacob is more adventurous and is the animal lover, so he loved getting a good view of the animals.

Feeding an ostrich

Caleb spent some time in David's lap and my lap - he LOVED seeing all the animals...just not too close! :)

The guy in front of us was hilarious. He stood up through his sunroof the whole time and had the animals all up in his face. Not for me thank you!

I was glad to see he didn't have any horns if my little boy was going to be petting him!

Jacob REALLY loved the deer - they were smaller and more gentle so he got to pet them quite a bit.

Even Callie finally got brave enough to pet the deer!

Josiah stayed in the back corner of the van and read the guidebook to us with all the information about the animals and the rules about what we weren't allowed to do! :) Love that boy!!! (This face says "What? Why are you taking a picture of me?"

Zebras - aren't they gorgeous??

Never seen a zebra this close up before!

Camels - ewww gross. They are HUGE - totally bigger than you would imagine. Pretty gross and all up in your face. We kept our windows closed when we drove past them. They probably could totally crush our van.

Did I say Jacob loved it? :)

Yep - I was there too! :)

I'm not zooming on any of these pictures - this really is how close all the animals were to us!

This is the view of where we were in the mountains - totally gorgeous! We had a great time - lots of hilarious fun and laughter!! :)

Natural Bridge

(I copied this one in out of order...sorry)

Right next door to the Wax Museum was the Natural Bridge (our main attraction :) ). We had been once before the last time we vacationed here 4 years ago, but were excited to go back. My Mom had never been here before and so she was very excited to see it! On our way down, we toured through the Toy Museum and had SO much fun seeing toys from the last 100 years!

Callie LOVED all the dolls...

The boys LOVED all the Star Wars stuff...


See the sign that says "Please do not touch". That was a HARD one to enforce! It's almost like toys and children are magneticall drawn to each other!

Time to walk down to see Natural Bridge now!

It's just breath-taking. It's one of the 7 natural wonders of the world and is just AWEsome. We loved seeing it again and hiking around on the trails.

My big boys. I kept remembering when we were here last - I was pregnant with Callie and the boys were 2 and 4 years old!!!

We were attempting to get a family picture....possibly for the Christmas card....but it was like pulling teeth. Oh well!

Caleb practically gave my Mom a heart attack wanting to climb every where on the rocks :)

We had a great time. We stayed and watched the "Days of Creation" show here they used different lighting effects on the bridge and read the biblical account of creation straight from Genesis! Then they played a recording of George Beverly Shae (OLD timey gospel singer) singing The Lord's Prayer and then the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing God Be With You! We loved it! A great ending to a FUN filled day! :)