Animals in Cages

This is probably my first negative review of place we have visited. I usually like everywhere we take the kids but I did not like Catoctin Wildlife Preserve and Zoo. Wesley and Lydia liked it though. We got in for half price thanks to a gift membership from one of Chris' brothers and his wife. So far we have gotten in free to two children's museums and one science museum. We love this membership.

When we paid for our 1/2 price tickets, we asked about the safari ride since the times where posted right there. The employees told us that Josiah couldn't go because everyone has to be over 36" to go on the bumpy ride and the safari last one hour. What they didn't tell us was that it is an extra fee. We heard an announcement about going to the main gate to get tickets. Well, it was $15 for adults and $10 for children. We weren't paying an additional $35 for Chris or me to go with Lydia and Wesley on the safari since we had just paid $26 to get into the zoo. Yes, we could have found this out from their website, but we didn't do that much research for our visit. We were thinking the safari ride was like the one at Reston Zoo. By the way, no one went on the 12:30 safari.

I cannot imagine paying full price for this place. Without our membership, it would have been $52 and we did everything (but the safari) in less than three hours. It only took that long because we sat down and ate ice cream.

We bought two cups of animal food when we paid our admission. Unfortunately there weren't a lot of animals to feed. Wesley and Lydia did enjoy feeding the deer but all I could think of was how at the San Diego Wild Animal Park the deer weren't inside a fence; the kids could get right beside of the deer and pet them. Of course most zoos can't compare to the Wild Animal Park.
There were a few other animals (less than five) the kids could feed. Wesley and Lydia enjoyed feeding them and didn't complain.

Riding in the backpack is a great way for a baby to visit a zoo.
Here is a good example of how most of the animal habits were. Animals in cages.
At the bigger and nicer zoos the habitats for the animals look more natural.

The black swans were pretty (and not in cages). There are a lot of birds at this zoo.

There were also a lot of snakes on display and, thankfully, they were all behind glass. Wesley really liked looking at all the snakes.

Lydia and Wesley both fed the fish. Unfortunately, Lydia also dropped her sunglasses into the pond.

The highlight of our zoo visit was the alligator feeding. The gator habitat looked more natural than most of the exhibits. I am so glad we got to see the feeding and hear the zoo keeper's talk about the alligators. All of the alligators were once pets. When they started getting big the owners realized they couldn't keep them. The gators are fed once a day. They were enjoying chicken on Sunday.

This white duck looked very interesting.

We won't be going back. I hope the next time we go camping at Cunningham Falls, the kids don't beg to go to the zoo. So take it from us, DON'T GO.

Camping with a Baby

This weekend we enjoyed our fourth annual camping trip to Cunningham Falls State Park.

Taking a baby camping posed a few challenges. The first one was the logistics and packing for camping with three kids. Since our van doesn't sit three across on the middle row, Chris had to put what he could up in a roof top carrier. Wesley rode in the third row and we folded the other 2/3 of the seat down. When Chris was unpacking everything, he put Wesley on top of the van, to hand some stuff down to him.

Josiah had two naps in his crib on Friday and one nap in the van on the way to Cunningham Falls State Park. There are days, that he doesn't have a single long nap in his crib because we are out and about. It didn't occur to me until he wouldn't go to bed Friday night, that I shouldn't have let him so long in his crib for the first two naps.

Josiah had a horrible time going to sleep Friday night. Of course, we didn't want him crying and disturbing all of the other campers. I walked him around the camp loop five times and Chris walked him around three times. Finally, he fell asleep close to 11:00. This is how I found him and Chris when I came back from brushing my teeth in the bathhouse. Another challenge was where he would sit for meal times. He ended up sitting in Wesley's camping chair while we sat at the picnic table. He sat right by me so I could give him food from the table. Friday night, Chris grilled steaks and broccolini. We also had spinach salad with strawberries and blue cheese. Josiah had a little steak and a lot of strawberries. Saturday morning we had pancakes. For lunch we had hamburgers and hotdogs. For dinner we had pulled chicken sandwiches and spinach salad with blueberries. I prepped the chicken with the rub and made the sauce Friday at home so all we had to was grill the chicken and reheat the sauce. Josiah loved the bbq pulled chicken and blueberries.

Another concern was what to do with a crawling baby while at the campsite. Thankfully, he loves standing and cruising at things. At one point, Chris caught him squatting down to pick up gravel and putting it in one of our large storage boxes. We moved him over to the cooler and he worked on filling up the cup holders.

Yes, he did eat some dirt but not as much as I feared he would eat. We also just let him crawl around a lot. He mostly bear crawled on his hands and feet.

On Saturday morning, Lydia "read" with her flashlight.Lydia and Wesley rode their bikes around camp loop A LOT.

We hiked up to the little fall.

Of course, the hike put Josiah to sleep.

He normally doesn't sleep this soundly but he was so tired from the night before.

Wesley said the hike was his favorite part of the camping trip.

Lydia said her favorite part was swimming to Daddy in the lake.

When we went to Myrtle Beach in April, Josiah was content to just sit on a beach towel and watch everyone else. At the lake, he discovered how much fun crawling around in the sand can be.

He liked playing in this little pool the kids made.He also liked sitting in the lake and splashing and then crawling out. When Chris buried Wesley in the sand, Josiah got in on the action too. After all that playing in the sand and water, Josiah took a great nap on the beach.

While Josiah napped, Wesley and Lydia had snowcones.

After dinner we went to the ampitheater to hear a presentation on rattle snakes.

The speaker also had a copperhead with him. I remember when we saw two copperheads while we were hiking a couple of years ago during another camping trip.

The presentation was cut short because of thunderstorms. The kids didn't get to roast marshmallows that night but thankfully everyone, including Josiah, went to bed easily. Chris and I stayed up and talked for an hour after the kids were in bed. I missed sitting by the fire since we were saving the firewood so the kids could roast marshmallows in the morning. After breakfast Wesley and Lydia had s'mores. Josiah just had plain graham crackers. Thankfully he didn't know the difference.

We had a great time. Camping with a crawling baby posed some challenges but it all worked out.
He even enjoyed taking the lid off my empty coffee cup and putting it back on.
Hopefully, we will have another opportunity to go camping this summer.

First Summer Outing - The Zoo

Monday was the start of Wesley's summer vacation. We joined our neighbor and friend LeeSa and her children at the National Zoo. It was my first time taking all three kids to a zoo without Chris. I think the outing went really well.

The four older children walked around the zoo holding hands most of the time.
Here is a cute little prairie dog.

We saw lots of animals but I didn't take that many photos. I also didn't take a lot of pictures of the kids.

I like the way this picture of the tiger turned out with my digital SLR camera.

I still haven't cleaned the lens so you can see the debris on it in this next picture. (Oh yeah, I was reading a book on how to use my camera but I stopped reading it months ago. Maybe I should get back to it.)

After we ate our picnic lunch, we saw an orangutan out on the o-line.

It is very hard to get a picture of five children all looking at the camera and not making silly faces.

Part of the new elephant area is open.

With a little sunscreen on his head and in his hair, Josiah can have a nice mohawk.

Yep, I think these two had a great day at the zoo.

Lydia and Josiah fell asleep on the way home. I carried Lydia in from the car and put her in bed. She slept for over 90 minutes. Josiah did not continue his nap once we were home.

Wesley told me several times after we got home that he was bored, but I chose to ignore his complaints since I have heard that is good for kids to have some "boring time" to figure out other things to do.

He read one of our children's Bible to himself! Yippee!

I have to say that after only two days off from school, I realized why parents sign up their school aged kids for a lot of camps. I want it to be a fun summer with a lot of family together time but it has been a rough adjustment for him this week. I think he misses the structure and activities of school.

Strawberry Time

On Memorial Day we went to pick strawberries. It was a very hot day so we got there early (around 9:30). Since this was our second year going go to Homestead Farm for strawberries, I am going to call it an annual tradition.

We like Homestead Farm for several reasons. It is less than an hour away. The strawberries are great. It isn't commercialized. The kids like seeing the farm animals, like this goat .

The kids also love the wagon rides. We had to wait for ten minutes or so for a wagon this time. The wagon ride is free for the strawberries and $3 per person for the pumpkins in the fall. We walked back from the strawberry field this year because it was so close.

Josiah rode around in the backpack carrier. The carrier worked out great because it kept him contained. Otherwise, he would have crawled all over the strawberry plants.

I did have to feed him a steady supply of strawberriers or he would start whining very loudly for more. (The carrier prevented him from easily getting his hands together for "more".)

Wesley seemed to really enjoy picking the strawberries.

At one point Lydia told me, "I am not putting any more strawberries in the box. I'm just going to eat all the ones I pick."

Chris did pick a few strawberries while carrying Josiah on his back.

We ran into some of our good friends in the strawberry field! We don't get to see them very often so this was a very pleasant surprise.

We came home and had some strawberries with our cheeseburgers and fries. After swimming we had strawberry smoothies. Then we had strawberry and spinach salad and strawberry ice cream. A few days later I made strawberry muffins. Yum!

Maybe in July we can do an early morning outing to get blackberries and peaches.

Community Pool Party

Last Sunday our neighborhood had a pool party. One of my neighbors had cupcake cakes made. I love the flip flop.
We also had a "pool" cake and another one that just said the name of our community. We had watermellon, grapes, chips, juice boxes, and water.

This was Josiah's first time eating a slice of watermellon. He loved it and I was afraid I let him eat too many slices but he was okay.

Josiah loved the pool. One of my neighbors told me, "I think Josiah is having the time of his life."

Wesley liked swimming but I think he liked the treats even more. He ended up eating a bag of cheetos and two cupcakes. He swam a lot in between all the snacking so I figure he worked off all the extra sugar and calories.

Thankfully, Lydia started swimming on her own again. She did great last fall through December in swim lessons and then in January decided she couldn't swim by herself. We stopped swim lessons and she has only been in a pool at Great Wolf Lodge since then. I don't know who was happier about her swimming last weekend, Lydia or I.