A Trip to Tyler to See Aunt Stephanie

Aunt Stephanie was in Tyler visiting her family, so we headed down there to see her.  We stayed in a hotel and of course, the kids loved it!

We picked the kids up a little early from school. Karis wanted to make sure she got her homework done before the day ended. 

We had dinner with Aunt Stephanie on Friday night and then she took us to the zoo on Saturday.

Marking off each animal we visited. 

Watching the penguins eat lunch. 

Daddy and Aunt Stephanie checking out the lion. 

Looking at the large crocodile. 

Aunt Stephanie did a lot of heavy lifting that day!

Mommy's favorite animal!

Feeding the ducks, fish and turtles. 

Such a fun treat to spend time with Aunt Stephanie!

It was a warm day so when we were done, we stopped for ice cream before heading back home. 

A Day in the Wild

Well, not "the wild," more like a wildlife center. On Friday, we drove about two hours away to Fossil Rim. It's a place where you can drive through the center in your own car and see lots of different animals. We arrived later than we had hoped (11 am), so we were worried that all the animals would be napping far away after their morning feed. But the weather was beautiful, it was the first sunny day after two days of rain, and all the animals were out. We saw so many different animals and it was such a fun time!

We drove two cars but we left one in the parking lot. We took out all the car seats and piled in the van. Kyle chose to sit with Grandpa. 

We checked off all the animals we saw in the brochure. We didn't see any wolves... but no one complained!

First off, the ostrich. We were all a little wary about these guys.

Karis waving to some ostriches in the distance.

Makena enjoying the view.

Fallow deer waiting for some feed. We were only allowed to hand feed the giraffes. For all others, we were instructed to throw the food onto the ground. 

So excited to see all the animals!

An Addax which are critically endangered.

Derek drove us through the center. It took us about 3 hours to make our way through it.

The Aoudod approaching.

Happy chaos! The kids loved being able to move around the van without seat belts.

I loved watching this guy see all the animals for the first time.

Waterbucks

This guy just opened his mouth and lapped his tongue around, waiting for some feed. 

We were all excited to see the giraffes. They were towards the end and we were saving our feed for them. When we got there, they were all hanging out in the distance. We thought they weren't going to come to us. Then Jeremy hung out the window and started shaking the brown paper bag of feed.

And then one by one, they started making their way to us!

There was a giraffe in our car! It was awesome!! 

And then we met up with some zebras. 

They weren't shy either and stuck their heads in the van.

They were beautiful!

We saw other animals including white rhinos, (caged) cheetahs, gazelles, other horned deer-like animals, cranes, and turkeys.

On our way back, we stopped to eat at a steakhouse. Grandpa wanted to celebrate Julie's birthday!