1st Day of Summer

With our 1st day of summer vacation, we decided to take advantaged of a FREE Red River Zoo day! Due to our extreme weather here, it has a limited amount of animals but just enough to make it a fun outing. The day was perfect! Warm enough to make you want to be outside but a bit of a breeze to keep you cool. Yeah!
Here's some animals we saw:

We met up with Haylie & Ali for her 1st trip to the Zoo. They had face painting so all the kids got decked out with an animals. We got to see a Small Mammals Animal Show where we met up with the McPhersons. We also briefly got to see the Tuckers and the Smiths. So fun to run into friends!

They had free Carousel rides for the kids. It went super fast! "AHHHH! Let me off", says the Mom. LOL Before we left, the kids all got to pick a backpack out from the Sponsor. We are going to use them as our "Summer Fun Packs". Yeah for free stuff!

What a great day for the Zoo!

The Red River Tigaloo:

Let the Summer fun begin!

Mini Fam Vacation in Bismarck: Breakfast @ the Dakota Zoo

One of the reasons that we went to Bismarck before it snowed was to get some more mileage from our Zoo pass. When I went looking for the hours of the zoo in Bismarck, I discovered that they were having a breakfast at the Zoo day today. Yeah for us! We got the member price and all ate an all-you-can-eat yummmy breakfast of pancakes, eggs, bacon, sausage and juice. They had like the most fabulous service we've ever had and we didn't even have to tip!

We first checked out the Discovery Center. We could have just gone home after that. There was so much to see! Lily was such a helper with Glory. Too cute!

It was pretty chilly but we braved part of the zoo. The animals were really active. What a great time to come! I just think animals are gorgeous! Heavenly Father sure has an amzing imagination to create them all. Brett offered Justice a dollar if he could catch a chicken. All he did was make his mom nervous and tick off a couple roosters. LOL! Brett also has such a way with kids... He scared their pants off with his "bear story" as we made our way to the Grizzly bear exhibit. Thanks, Honey! Liberty & Lily are all set for Bday gifts this year. They pointed out all the animals they wanted as gifts and then I would take pictures. A nice picture frame full of animals- piece of cake gift, if you ask me! Glory's favorite part by far was a little leaf blowing in the wind at the base of a tree. (I think she thought it was an animal because she sat there forever saying, "Oh cute!") The kids actually all LOVED the baby squirrel that crossed our path the best. Totally make us laugh- a blowing leaf and a baby squirrel and the playground- we could have just taken them all to my backyard!! Silly kids!

 Here's some of the amazing Dakota Zoo animals:

And we even got to take home our favorites:

 What a great day at the Zoo!

Utah Vacation: Utah's Hogle Zoo

This year, I bought a Year Membership to the Chahinkapa Zoo in Wahepton, ND. Part of my decision was that you can get into the Utah's Hogle Zoo for free. Since I knew I was coming to Utah soon- it sweetened the deal. Whahoo! or.... NOT! When we made it to Hogle Zoo, they only gave us half off. Dang! They said they changed it about a year ago. But I just got my pass 4 weeks ago? Oh well. You win some, you lose some, right? Irritating though. (See the money-saving gene strikes again. LOL!) But we did have a good time at Utah's Hogle Zoo. We met Treston & part of his family (they had plans to have the whole family come and then Brigham got sick- Sorry guys- we missed you Shelley & Brigham) along with his sister-in-law- Mary. Tauni & Kortnie, Grandma Karla & Ryer and Grandpa Randy came as well. Justice ditched us to spend more time with Ethan but we did manaage to steal Miss Halle for the adventure. Lots to see and lots of fun! When we got ot the zoo, we rented a double stroller which was a life-saver for the little girls. By the end- all my girls we piled in there. Good thing that my hubby is so buff! ;)

Most of us took a ride on the Merry-go-Round. {Brett got a work phone call and went MIA for about an hour so he missed it- gotta love the working man} I obviously got a little bias on my pictures but there were more kids and they all had  a blast. Although, I'm not sure "round-n-round-n-round" is my favorite anymore. Side-affect of growing older, I guess? LOL! But very cute animals. Just darling!

We did the shortened, fast version of the animals at the Zoo so that we could make it to the 1:00 Bird Show. It was great! God's creatures are pretty amazing! They had hawks, doves, performing parrots, chickens, silly penguins and eagles. They even let some audience members participate. Really cool! At the end, you got to feed the birds money and they would put them inside the donation box. If you donated $5 or more, you could get your picture taken wih ones of the BIG birds. Guess which one we picked? LOL! Isn't that Bald Eagle beautiful?? Thanks Dad for taking pictures for us. (My new camera's battery died. I was having a cow not being able to get the pictures I wanted. ARRGH!!!)

When the bird show was done, Grandma Karla treated us all to lunch. (Thanks Mom!) Then for the Sadlers boys, of course (because who wouldn't like train with a grandfather named Grandpa Whoo-whoo)--- the Zoo day wouldn't have been complete without a Choo-Choo ride. All aboard!

PS. And in case it doesn't look like it---we did see some animals and enjoyed them very much.

Lots of fun! Thanks everyone for joining us.

We had a Zoo-rific time!

Chahinkapa Zoo

The weather was great so a few of us headed south for a SHORT trip to the Chahinkapa Zoo http://www.chahinkapazoo.com/. LOL!- Short?, Yah, right! {Oops! My memory of our last year's Zoo trip must have failed me. I told the ladies it was like 30 minutes. Well.... more like an hour. I'm serious...The whole town of Wahpeton must have moved South since last year. ;) LOL! Sorry ladies!}

It was a great day and we had lots of fun! Chahinkapa has a good avriety of animals and lots of shade.

One of the favorite things was collecting feathers. The coveted ones were the ones from the crying peacocks. My favorite was when... Liberty found a huge peacock tail feather and everyone wanted to hold it. Finally, Lily put her hand on her hip and said, "Liberty since you ARE my best friend..." I had to giggle. I guess best friend statis comes with specials rights. LOL! The feathers were very pretty though!

The kids favorite I would have to say was the Raspberry Patch. In the back of the zoo by the Mountain Goats, there is a large raspberry patch along the path. It was hilarious to watch all the kids eat every single red object they could find. We had to laugh because by this time it was getting to be lunchtime (we had several whiny kids complaining that they were starving ;) so a few of the kids said- "Well at least this is something to eat!" Just love what kids say! LOL!

Other fun at the Zoo:

What a great day out with the Mom. These kids are very lucky! I am so grateful I get to be a stay-at-home Mom. I try not to take that for granted and I hope my kids don't either. (I don't know where Bonny was when we were taking these pictures. We'll have to get one of her fam next time! ;)

After the Zoo, we went to the Park for lunch. They have 2 great playgrounds but did the kids use them? Not really. Instead they chose to become Human Skateboards. I love the creativity! So fun!

Thanks for joining us at the Zoo, ladies & kids. I promise I'll get us to a couple of zoos this year to make our passes worth it! LOL! Dang Red River! Maybe Wahpeton will move closer. LOL!