Road Trip: Day 2 (Memphis Zoo)

The first stop of our trip (and our original destination) was the Memphis Zoo. I was excited to go there because they have both polar and panda bears. When we went to the San Diego Zoo 10 years ago, we managed to miss the pandas, so this was going to be the first time for all of us to see them.

We were pretty impressed with the zoo. We hit Cat Country first since we had about an hour until the keeper talk with the pandas at the back of the zoo.

One of the craziest sights was the red panda relaxing in the tree above our heads. It looked like it could jump down at any time.

The kids were able to get up close to a Komodo dragon, which seemed to really like Jack.

And then we reached the pandas (finally!).

Mara with Ya Ya, the female panda

Jack with Le Le, who slept the whole time we were there.

More pictures of Ya Ya

The zoo has two polar bears – Payton and Haley – but we only got to see Payton. However, we got to see them feed him, and it was neat to watch him diving in the water.

We only got to see one sea lion, but that's because the other female just gave birth three days ago.

Mara also got to feed some budgies.

When we left, we went to the Bar-B-Q Shop for dinner based on the recommendation of an employee at the zoo gift shop. It was good barbecue. We liked it so much that we bought a bottle of the sauce to bring home with us.

See more pictures here.

Road Trip: Day 1 (On the Road to Memphis)

I remember taking road trips during the summer when I was growing up and wanted to take our kids on one. A couple of months ago, we decided to take the sever-hour drive to Memphis, Tennessee, so we could go to the zoo and see some of the sights around there.

Our trip started expanding when I discovered that the Tennessee Aquarium had cuttlefish, which both Mara and Jack love. However, the aquarium is in Chattanooga, which is on the other side of the state. When I looked at the map, I discovered it was just a couple of hours north of Atlanta, which was one of the destinations we were talking about for next year. After talking it over with John, we decided to extend our road trip from just Memphis to include Nashville, Chattanooga, and Atlanta.

The only drawback to that plan was that we would just be coming back across the middle of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. I wanted to make this trip fun for all of us, so we decided to cut our stay in Atlanta short by a day so we could go a couple of hours out of our way and drive along the gulf coast.

And that's how we planned our road trip. ☺

Before we loaded up the car for the trip, I took the kids to the dentist for a cleaning. Then, we left this afternoon to head to Memphis. As part of our trip, we are trying to drive by as many state capitols as we can. First stop was Little Rock, Arkansas. The kids did pretty well for this leg of the trip even though we got to Memphis kind of late. Thankfully, our longest drives are today and on the way home, so we won't be in the car for this long again until next weekend.

See more pictures here.

Getting Ready to Hit the Road

Monday, June 25

Brownie is our old kitty. She's going to be 11 in August, and she's getting pretty set in her ways. I'm starting to have to fight with her every night over who gets to use my pillow.

Tuesday, June 26

This year is Spaghetti Warehouse's 40th anniversary, and they were offering $6 spaghetti and meatballs tonight. Since we're running low on food at home and don't want to go shopping because of our trip next week, we decided to take advantage of their deal. I don't think the kids minded one bit.

Wednesday, June 27

The crepe myrtle in our front yard is in full bloom right now thanks to all of the rain we've received this month.

Thursday, June 28

We decided to rent a car for our road trip, and we went to pick it up tonight. We reserved a Chevy Impala, but they upgraded us to a Ford Escape because the car's inspection was about to expire. I'm looking forward to driving and riding in it.

Happy Anniversary to Us!

Tuesday, June 19

Jack found the outdoor gloves I got to take camping with Girl Scouts, and he keeps insisting on wearing one of them. He even fell asleep tonight with one of them on his hand.

Wednesday, June 20

Today is our 14th wedding anniversary. We didn't plan anything special for the day since we're going on our trip soon and John had kung fu class tonight. However, I did go out at lunch to pick up a SpotBot shampooer to help clean up around the house.

Thursday, June 21

Since Jack likes the Little Einsteins so much, we decided to pass down Mara's towel to him. He was so excited to wear it and seems like such a big boy in it.

Friday, June 22

When we can't think of any place else to eat, we tend to go to Chick-Fil-A. After tonight, the next time we eat there will be in Atlanta, which is the home of Chick-Fil-A. We're even going to try to go to one of the original ones.

Saturday, June 23

I attended camp training today for Girl Scouts. I am now certified to take our kids cabin and shelter camping. (We need to do advanced training to be able to take them tent camping.) As part of the training, we learned how to start campfires with both wood and charcoal and tie knots. It was a lot of fun and didn't feel too hot even though it was almost 100 degrees out there.

Sunday, June 24

We took the kids to see the movie Brave today. It was a really good movie, and Jack did really well watching it. It was the first time we haven't had to leave the theater with him since watching Tangled (and he slept through most of that one).

New Class

Jack wasn't supposed to move to his new class at daycare until the end of summer, but there were some openings that allowed him to move up sooner. Today is his first official day in the Preschool II class. He's already pretty used to the class because he would spend time in it in there in the mornings when I drop him off. He didn't let me go without some tears (and really didn't want me to take a picture), but I know he will soon be fine at drop-off again.

Happy Father's Day!

We decided to take it easy today for Father's Day and spent the day relaxing. Here are some pictures of the dads we spent the day with.

Traveling Back in Time

Since there are so many birthdays in my family within four weeks (five total starting with mine on May 27 and ending with Lori's on June 23), we decided to have a big celebration and go to Medieval Times. It's been almost 11 years since we were last there. The kids loved the knights and horses (and the adults did too). Sadly, our knight, the red one, didn't win this time. However, all of the girls got a flower from the knight.