Camel Rides, Giraffes, a Polar Bear, and Slides?

Yesterday we went to the zoo in Baltimore for our second annual Labor Day Saturday trip. We are Fonz members so admission was free. This zoo has different animals than the National Zoo: camels, giraffes, penguins, a polar bear, and more. There are some fun places to play and the zoo is also a lot less crowded than the zoo in DC. So, I think it is worth the drive to Baltimore.

In this photo you can see how engrossed the boys are in looking at spoonbills

Right at noon, Chris pulled out his XM radio and headphones to listen to the Hokies lose the season opener. Mark missed our trip to the zoo because he was in Charlotte at the game.
The zoo has camel rides for $4 a person. Kids three and older can ride without an adult.

I had to hold onto Lydia.

Colten slept through the polar bear exhibit.

I think Wesley and Hunter were more excited about the Tundra Buggy than they were about the polar bear.

The zoo is divided into two halves. We went through African Journey, had a snack/lunch, continued on through African Journey, went to the polar bear exhibit and then we gave in to Wesley's repeated requests for ice cream.

The other half of the zoo is the "Maryland Wilderness featuring The Children's Zoo". Wesley and Hunter enjoyed petting the goats. Wesley kept saying, "This one likes me" about all the goats. They were very friendly.

After Lydia started playing in the dirt in the goat area, Chris washed her hands and she was banned from the goats. Since Nana and Pawpaw were holding her she didn't mind.

The zoo has a carousel, another little kid ride, and a rock climbing wall that cost a small amount but we skipped these. The train is supposed to open next year.

The silo has a curvy slide in it. After Wesley ran up the steps, he was afraid to go down the slide. I told him I would give him a mint and then I pushed him down. He was hooked. Hunter also liked it. (I thought Lydia was too little for this one; mainly because you can only see the kids at the top and the bottom.) There are tractor-tricycles for the kids to play with in this area and other farm animals to watch.

Lydia, Wesley, and Hunter all loved The Giant Tree slide. This slide was very fast and I thought Lydia would be scared after the first time but she ran around to the steps and started climbing up again. Once again we had to make the kids stop sliding, after numerous trips down, and move on.

Michelle took this photo of us. Lydia fell asleep in backpack as half our party walked back to the van at closing time, 4:00. Michelle, Hunter, Wesley, and I rode the tram back down the hill because that is what the boys wanted to do.

We had a great day at the zoo. We were there from 11 to 4 and I think we did almost everything.

One More About Camping

This week I received an email from Marriage Connection. In the email was a link to an article about family camping. The wife first details why she didn't want to go camping and then she states all the ways that camping became such a blessing to her family. The article is funny and she is able to articulate the reasons I loved camping with my family, so I have to post the link and encourage you to read it.

Sunday at the Lake

This is my third and final post about our family camping trip. On Sunday Michelle put Colten in Lydia's carseat (because she needed a place to put him) while she made him a bottle. Wesley climbed in the van and started playing with him.
When Michelle came back, Wesley wanted to feed Colten his bottle. Wesley loved doing this and he kept saying, "I am feeding Baby Colten. I am the babysitter."
Cunningham Falls State Park has a great beach area and lake that the kids really enjoyed. I think we will make this an annual camping trip.

I think Chris was picking Lydia up because she was trying to drink the lake water.

The lake has a large shallow area that was great for the kids.

Below is a cute photo of Lydia putting on Wesley's shoes. They are on the wrong feet but they are donned. She loves to put them on which sometimes inspires him to put them on his own feet. Even though Wesley can dress himself, he never does so willingly. I usually have to make him do it. I have to say things like, "If you don't put your pj's on, you will have to sleep naked" or "You can't have breakfast until you get dressed." I recently read in a book "from the beginning, the child has no interest whatsoever in becoming responsible." This helped me understand his resistance to dressing himself and being more responsible.

We are looking forward to more camping trips so let us know if you have any suggestions or if you want to join us.

Loving the Dirt

We were at the campground for 46 hours during which time Wesley and Hunter had four showers! Lydia was so tired on Saturday night I didn't give her a second shower that day.

Wesley fell down and scraped up his hand. He got something in it, dirt or a splinter, that wouldn't come out with washing so Chris tried the teezers.

When the teezers failed to get the brown stuff out of Wesley's hand, Chris used the knife.

The campground was great. We had a shaded site that was a quick walk to the bathhouse which was cleaner than I expected but there were several bugs in there. I find bugs interesting and as long as they aren't in my house, I kind of like them.

The downside to the campground was the fact that all the sites are gravel. The gravel is small and there is plenty of gray dust/dirt. I might not have paid much attention to this if we didn't have little kids. They loved the gravel and the dirt. I didn't realize they could get so dirty.

There have been some news stories lately about how kids aren't playing outside enough or playing in the dirt enough. There is even a book about the nature-deficit disorder. There are news stories that report "a good dose of dirt could be the best medicine for preventing allergies." I even saw an article that reports that growing up in an overly clean house may increase the risk of inflammatory bowel disease. (That's my new excuse for not having a super clean house.)

Anyway, knowing that some "experts" are calling for kids to get out, enjoy nature and get dirty, made me feel better about the kids this weekend.

Here is Chris showing the kids how to use the construction toys. (Don't worry, the reverse lights aren't really on, it was just the reflection of my camera flash.)
The boys played a lot with the sand toys in the gravel and dirt.
Here are the boys roasting marshmallows. Like Wesley's technique? See how dirty their legs are? You can also see the gravel and dirt in these photos.
Look at Hunter's adorable face smudged with dirt. His legs were completely gray at this point because he had been sitting and lying down in the gravel. I really cound't believe how dirty Hunter had gotten. We had to shower the kids before naptime on Saturday. That evening, it was Wesley's turn to win the "dirtest kid" award.

Even baby Colten got dirty. The older kids touched him and they also stirred up a lot of dirt and dust around him.
Getting out the stomp rocket helped keep the kids out of the dirt for a little while.

Family Camping

We went on a family camping trip to Cunningham Falls State Park this weekend. The Wrights went with us and Gregory and Jack joined us for one night (Gregory's one year old son was sick so his wife stayed home with him).

Wesley was thrilled to "bam, bam, bam!" with the mallet.
We purchased a new tent for this trip. Chris has a backpacking tent but it isn't big enough for all four of us. Fortunately we all enjoyed the camping trip so we hope to do a couple of more trips this fall to decrease the "cost per use". Let us know if you are interesting in camping with us or if you have suggestions for good places to camp with kids.

Here is Chris firing up the grill.
The kids liked sitting in these chairs. They also enjoyed closing them up and moving them around.

Wesley and Hunter were very into the idea of roasting marshmallows and eating s'mores. Hunter didn't like the roasted marshmallows Friday night but he was happy to roast more on Saturday although he didn't eat them. Wesley liked the s'mores better the second night but he also liked eating just plain marshmallows. I think he had a total of seven or eight marshmallows that night, some roasted and some straight out of the bag. Both nights, Lydia was already in bed and missed the whole thing.

I found the air mattress and sleeping bag very comfortable and I slept well. I woke up a little after seven Saturday morning. Wesley must have heard me to talking to Chris. He woke up and looked around with the biggest, sweetest smile on his face. I wish had captured that moment with my camera.

Here is one of the few photos I got of Gregory and Jack who was still partially asleep.

On Saturday, we "hiked" a half-mile trail to the falls. The boys were very enthusiastic about the hike. The falls were a just a little trickle of water but the area was very pretty.

Wesley really enjoyed looking at the falls. You can see his back in this photo of the Wrights (minus Hunter).

After lunch, Michelle and I had to shower the kids before their nap. (I will be doing another post on the dirt and how much the children loved being covered in it.) Once the kids were all napping, Michelle and I went for a walk. This was great exercise because on the way back, it was up hill all the way. We walked a mile down to the camp check-in area and then walked back up and walked through a few of the camping circles. My calf muscles are sore tonight.

When we returned from our walk, we found both of our husbands sleeping. Chris and Mark both had their heads back snoozing but Chris woke up when I got my camera out of the van.

After naptime, Michelle and I took the kids to the playground while Mark and Chris started on dinner. This very nice playground is right beside of the lake and beach area.

The kids also liked playing on the more natural-looking climbing equipment. Once Lydia got herself up there with Wesley, I got her down because I was a little afraid of her busting her head open or something else horrible. I knew Wesley would be okay up there; it wasn't that high.

We had a wonderful weekend. It was fun to getaway and spend time outside as a family with great friends. One of the best parts of the weekend for Michelle and me was that we did no cooking or cleaning. Our husbands do cook and clean some at home but this weekend they did it all!

Here is Chris making breakfast on Saturday morning which he often does on the weekend. We had "beach eggs". They were very yummy. Chris cooked five meals while we were camping.

Here is Mark washing breakfast dishes.

Nine Years

Nine years ago today I married the man of my dreams.

We went on a cruise for our honeymoon which was my dream vacation. We quickly became hooked on cruising.

Sunset Picnic and Parade

Last Tuesday night, we went out to see the United States Marines Drum and Bugle Corps Sunset Parade at the Iwo Jima Memorial. We parked at Arlington Cemetery and walked to the memorial. We had a picnic while waiting for the parade to start. (Wesley has really started to like picnics recently. ) I enjoyed the announcements before the parade that gave information about the battle on Iwo Jima and facts about the statue. For example, it is the largest bronze statue in the world. I love history because it is the story of people and their lives. I also love trivial facts; even though, I can't remember them very well.

Lydia has reached that crazy stage where she is really testing the limits but isn't ready for most consequences. Yes, I redirect her but she is challenging at times. Of course, she is sweet, funny, smart, and absolutely adorable and lovable. But she is my wild card right now. She had very little interest in what was happening on the field in front of us.

Here she is playing peek-a-boo with Colten. At one point, she tried to walk between Colten's carrier and me and she ended up turning a forward flip before landing on her back - uninjured.
The Wrights joined us, but they didn't like it as much as we did. Well, Hunter seemed to like it.

We saw this parade about five years ago and enjoyed it then. Since Wesley is so interested in music, drums, and marching bands, we knew he would enjoy the Drum and Bugle Corp. Chris' oldest brother gave their dad a DVD of computer animated robots playing the drums and other mallet instruments; Chris liked it some much he bought it for himself. Wesley loves to watch this "dum veedo" on car trips.

The best quote of the night was from Wesley, "That guy plays the drums like me."

The next photo shows when it all started to go down hill for me. I like the silent drill team but I knew the kids would be a little challenging during this time. Wesley was a little attracted to this but he kept asking when the band was coming back. At one point, Lydia starting going through my purse and screaming, "Mint! Mint!" Since I couldn't find a mint, I gave her a half a piece of gum so she would stop disturbing other people. The gum lasted about a minute before she swallowed it.

Chris was unaware that the kids were getting a little crazy because he was focused on recording the event. I bet he will hear the kids when he watches the recording. Later he said, "You should have told me that you needed help."

Sometimes I complain about living here: the cost, the traffic, the crowds. But there are times when I realize how special it is to live outside of our nation's capital. I felt very patriotic this night and I appreciated the chance to get out and enjoy one of the many wonderful events this area has to offer.