July 10, Summer day 39, Staycation day 4

No pictures today.  I took my camera, but figured out after I got there that there really wasn't a good time for me to snap a picture.  We went to the East Texas Oil Museum (here: http://www.easttexasoilmuseum.com/Pages/contact.html) in Kilgore, TX.  I wasn't 100% sure that the kids would like it because we had a docent to follow around & listen to.  While I understand the need for a docent in some museums, there are some places that I think we'd do better to walk through on our own.  When we were introduced to our docent (an older man, about 70-ish), I was hesitant, but he ended up really holding the kids' attention & making them laugh.  He was a sweet fellow, kind of grandfatherly and they enjoyed the tour.  Since Larry grew up in an oil man's home, he really enjoyed the museum, too.

We went to eat at McKay's buffet in Kilgore after it was over.  Larry & I went there once before.  I can't remember the occasion of why we were there, but it was yummy!  Very much a small town country restaurant & very southern.  The waitresses call everyone "hon" or "sweetie" & talk to you like they're related to you.  If you're ever through there, stop by for lunch or dinner.  They're next door to the only theater in town, so it's not too hard to find.  I had a salad first, then went back to the food bar & picked out baked fish, baked mac/cheese & green beans.  The green beans ended up tasting yucky so after a bite of them, I chose to skip the rest of the serving.  Since I'd already eaten my veggies (the salad), I felt OK with giving up on the green beans.  I had some bread pudding for dessert that was to die for!  I never make it myself so it's been years since I've eaten bread pudding.  YUM!!!!!!  The kids all had fried chicken--a major treat since their mama doesn't cook ANYTHING fried, ever!  They were in heaven, dipping fried chicken in gravy, gobbling up mashed potatoes & chocolate cake for dessert.  ha ha!  Only Sarah went to the salad bar for some veggies.  :)

We got home around 4:00 & took a short nap before getting up and attacking the second half of our day.  Larry went to mow the yard at our friend's house (the one where we've all been going swimming) and I took the kids to swim class.  Savannah & I sat upstairs & watched them out the observation window like we did Tuesday night.  I was SO PROUD of Sarah.  Just in the past 6 weeks, she's gotten brave enough to hold her breath & go under.  Tonight, she was taking a few strokes to the teacher & back.  Way to go, baby girl!!!

Tomorrow is day 5--our last weekday of Staycation!

July 9, Summer day 38, Staycation day 3

It was another good day of staycationing with the Reeves family!  But before we could leave, we had to deal with a major case of bed head.  LOL!  This is Samuel's head you're looking at.

 

We got that tackled before we could leave!  Whew!  Much better!

Today, we went to Athens, TX to visit the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center.  This is it:  http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/spdest/visitorcenters/tffc/visit/information/

Larry's mom and dad have never been there, so they met us to spend the day.  Upon entering the front gates, one of the first things we did was stop at this giant channel catfish pond.  All of their tanks are made in a way that you can walk up to the side & see the fish swimming around.  The catfish can be fed & this early in the morning, they go crazy when you throw in some food.  My camera has a video mode, so I did capture their splashing & swarming on there, but there is no sound.

Look at the size of these things!  They were longer than my arm & nearly as big around as Samuel!  Giant catfish, I tell ya!

We moved on & visited several other "fish tanks" as we moved through the outdoor part of the center.

Check out the size of this gar!  (or is it guar?  gaur?)  Anyway.. a big fish!

They even had some alligators to look at.  The kids loved them.

Then we moved inside.  While it was nice to be in the air conditioning, I wasn't all that enthused with looking at antique fishing rods, lure collections & old boat motors.  (no, I'm not kidding.)  SEE!

They had some replicas of record-setting fish & then the actual nets used to catch some of them.

They even had a "Hall of Fame" room where they celebrated some fishermen (& women) with little plaques and a short video bio of each fisherman.  Sarah liked watching the videos.

Larry's mom moved on ahead of us & went to the gift shop.  (What a treat!  She got each f the kids a little goodie, so they were thrilled.  They always beg to visit gift shops & end up buying a bunch of junk.  She found some useful stuff that they really have enjoyed.)  Larry & his dad were really enjoying all the fishing stuff throughout the museum, so the kids & I moved on and goofed off a little.  There was a tall, cylindrical tank of fish in some sort of exhibit.  The kids discovered that if you sat behind it & looked from the opposite side, you looked like you were inside the tank!  LOL!  See?

After touring through the museum, we went to a dive show in the theater.  It was fun to watch.  They have a diver in scuba gear inside a big tank that is hidden behind a curtain.  You watch a short video about fish & then the curtain opens.  You can talk to the diver through a microphone in the theater & ask him questions about the fish he's feeding, etc.  The kids enjoyed that.

When we came out of the theater, there was a lady holding a 3 year old baby alligator.  She let all the kids pet it & take pictures of it.

By this time, everyone was itching to go fishing!  So we picked out fishing rods & baggies of stink bait (pee-eww!) and headed to the banks of the pond to do some fishing.  Savannah caught a few fish.

Samuel caught a few, too, but he kept dropping them before I could get a picture.  He did tons of fishing, though!

Sarah worked & worked to catch a fish.  Long after the rest of us were pretty well done, she stillhad not caught anything.  She was getting frustrated & upset.

But Larry told her we'd stay there with her until she caught a fish.  She was SOOOO determined!  Not long later, she did it!!!

They give out certificates for "first ever" catches at the center, so she got one!  (We got one for Samuel, too, since his first ever catch was at this same place about a month ago!)

This is Larry's mom & dad fishing with Savannah before she called it quits.

After fishing, we had a picnic lunch & then headed home for the day.  It was about 3:00 before we got home.  We took a brief nap (we were all pretty drowsy from our time in the sun, I guess) and then headed to my parents' house for supper.  I forgot to take my camera to their house, though.

Tomorrow we're headed for another day of cool family fun!  Til then......

 

Tues July 8, Staycation day 2, Summer day 38

Today we took another local adventure to the Historic Aviation Memorial Museum (HAMM).  It is located in the old terminal building of the Tyler Pounds Field Airport.  This is the website if you want to check it out.  http://www.tylerhamm.com/

When we arrived & paid for our tickets, we were assigned a docent (a retired gentleman) who took us outside first to tour around the older planes on the grounds and play in the cockpit they have set up for people to climb into & take a look at what pilots would have to work with in an older fighter plane.  And because this is my blog, you get to see a picture of all three of my kids in it!

 

After playing in the cockpit & taking a look at an ejector seat from some old plane (I didn't get a pic of that), we went outside to look at some planes.  I won't begin to try to identify each one of these, although Larry might be able to.  Honestly, I don't get into history at all and so most of what I read & what the docent told us today went into one ear & out the other.  It was sort of like what you see in cartoons that kids hear when parents talk.  "blah blah blah blah PLANE blah blah blah blah FIGHTER PLANE blah blah blah blah PILOT blah blah blah blah WINGS".  You get the idea.  My kids had fun playing around the planes while Daddy listened to the docent tell every detail of each plane, who flew it, what war it was involved in, how many bullets/missiles the plane carried, what speed it flew, how each part of it functioned...blah blah blah.  LOL!

Here, we have the first plane.  It's silver with red stripes.  See how much bigger it is than Sarah?

And this is another plane.  It is really big.  Samuel & Sarah sat UNDERNEATH it near the wheels for some shade.

Here's another plane.  It wasn't too big, though.  You can see that, though.  After all, my eight year old could hold it up.  Savannah wandered around & looked at the back part of it, too.

After close to an hour of hearing all about the planes they have set up outside (I think there were about 8 of them) and watching 2 or 3 planes take off from the runway right beside the field where the planes were set up, we moved indoors.  Each of the kids got a turn on the flight simulator.  Again...my blog...you get to see pics of all three!  :)

And I have to share this 2nd pic of Samuel.  I love the look on his face!

We wandered around the rest of the museum for a little while, looking at displays of well...honestly, I don't even know what.  The kids were getting bored & I wasn't really all that interested in reading documents about aircrafts or pilots that I've never heard of, so I just followed the kids around.  Sarah liked this pilot!  Or maybe he's not a pilot.  I really don't know.  But she liked him anyway.  ha ha!

The kids & I eventually went to the gift shop to wait for Daddy to finish immersing himself in all the exhibits.  He really enjoyed the place, so I tried to keep the kids busy as long as I could so he could spend time checking out all the things he wanted to see. 

When he got done, it was lunchtime &we took the kids to CiCi's pizza.  We tried to convince them that while the restaurant's name LOOKED LIKE somewhere they'd been before, this was actually a new place they'd never been to.  We were pronouncing the name like "Kee-Kee's".  They didn't buy it, so we switched to calling it "Ky-Ky's".  They didn't buy that either.  LOL!  We tried.  We enjoyed our lunches & headed home, but ended up stopping at Lifeway bookstore to pick up something for Larry's grandmother.  While we were there, I got Sarah a kid's devotional book & let Savannah pick out a new book because tonight was Samuel & Sarah's first swim lesson of the summer.

We came home to rest & then left again in time for swim class.  This is the giant pool where their class is held.

And here is their class.  The teacher (the man walking with them) was showing them all the stuff around the pool & pointing out safety issues as they walked.  Samuel & Sarah are together, at the back of the crowd.  Sarah's in the blue suit & Samuel's right beside her.

Swim class was not over til nearly 8:30 tonight, which is when they're usually in BED!  When we left swim class, Larry surprised us all by pulling through Dairy Queen for a little treat on the way home!  Everyone was tickled about that!

Tomorrow is a new day.  Time for me to get in the shower & hit the pillow!

aoljpictureUpload, aoljpictureUpload_16

Mon July 7, Staycation Day 1, Summer day 37

Whew...that was a long title, wasn't it?

Today we went to Cherokee Trace Drive-thru Safari.  Feel free to take a peek at this website to see a little more info if you live locally & want to visit!  http://www.cherokeetrace.org/

The whole thing took about 90 minutes to drive through!  We weren't really sure what to expect other than pictures & videos we've seen through the years on TV or websites about places like this.  It was very cool, though, and definately worth the drive/ticket price if you live around here.

When we arrived, we went to the gift shop/office to buy our tickets & get the bags of food you feed the animals with.  They gave us a laminated paper with pictures of all the types of animals we might see along the way so that we could identify them.  There were rules to follow (don't get out of your car, don't open the doors--just windows, don't pet the animals if one gets close to your car, throw the food out onto the ground--don't try to hand feed the animals if you want to leave with all your fingers!, etc.).  And so, we were off on our very own Honda minivan safari through the "wild" of east Texas.

As we drove through the gates to the animal area, we had to cross a cattle guard (this is how they keep all the animals in the fenced area) and right away, animals walked right up to us!

A little further down the path, this little baby kangaroo came right up to Larry's window to be fed.

The animals were so breathtaking to see up close like this.

Well, some of them were.  THEN there were freaky animals like these 2 emus.

They really freaked me out because they were both VERY enthusiastic about getting the food we were throwing out to them.  I could not throw it fast enough to keep up with them & realized real quick that they were going to come into the van & eat it from my lap if I didn't go fast enough to suit them.  While I don't typically have a problem with birds in general, these things were as tall as the van, had very long necks & these nasty looking faces (reminded me of a buzzard/vulture).  Of course the kids & Larry were rolling in the van floor laughing at me because I was laughing at the birds' enthusiasm while I slowly inched my way back from the window.  I was throwing the food as far from the van as I could saying "Go eat it over THERE."  Eventually they got the best of me & I had to roll up the window to get them to go away!  LOL!  The kids were laughing about mom getting eaten by an emu the rest of the trip.

After leaving the emus behind, we came upon this goofy looking creature.  It's a llama, but let me tell you, they've got to be the geeks of the animal community.  Big buck teeth, funny looking eyes poking out the sides of their heads & a look on their face that says "duhhhhhhhhh".  We laughed & laughed at these silly looking animals.  In fact, I think this one was either blind in one eye or it had an eye that didn't work right--you know, one stares off into left field while the other one looks at you.  Poor guy had all the odds stacked against him.  I bet he didn't go to prom.

We continued on, seeing the spectacular animals & pretty scenery.

And then we finally spotted the camel!  The lady in the office told us that there were 2 camels, but one was "locked up" because it tries to chew on anything rubber--tires, windshield wipers, etc.  So the one who is out in the safari drive area is the female of the couple.  She spotted us coming & started making her way toward us.  She's smart.  She knew we had food!

She got pretty brave too, coming right up to the window for food.  Like the emus, I tried to throw it pretty far out from the car, but she would stay pretty close to eat it.

We thought we'd seen the last of the camel when we drove away, but realized several animals later that she had followed us!  LOL!  Silly thing followed us for about 2 miles & every time we'd stop to see/feed another animal, she'd be there wanting more.  ha!

The beauty of nature....

So peaceful & serene....

And there's the camel again!

We finally ditched the camel when he spotted a tasty tree to stop & nibble on.  Of course, we lost him just in time to be attacked by more emu!!  This time they were on Larry's side of the car & he got a taste of their enthusiasm!  LOL!  He loved taunting them, though.  He stick the food out the crack at the top of the window & just as they'd lean in to take it from his fingers, he'd drop it so that they'd have to bend down & pick it up off the ground.  They did it over & over, each time making us all laugh more.  Dumb birds!

And then.....there were the buffalo.  These things cracked us up.  As we approached, this is what we saw.

One was standing in the middle of the road & one was laying next to the road.  Hmm...surely the one in the road will MOVE as we get closer, right?  See the little deer-like thing on the right?  We stopped at him & threw out some food.

The buffalo is still standing there, not moving.  We inched closer & closer til we were almost bumping him with the front bumper of the van.  I didn't get a picture of that b/c we were laughing at the silly buffalo by then.

He FINALLY moved when we got that close.  The one laying down on my side of the van never moved.  He just lay there & ate the food I threw out to him.

The big guy, though (the one who had been blocking the road) approached Larry's window.  He threw out some food several times & while it was eating, we commented on how close the buffalo was -- close enough that Larry could've reached out & petted him while he ate.  And so I teasingly told Larry he ought to try to pet the buffalo.  Thinking he was Mr. Cool, he reached out the window to do just that.  As soon as his hand touched the buffalo's neck (the back of his neck since he was leaned down eating), that buffalo came up to groan at Larry, eye to eye.  Since this thing's head alone was nearly as big as the opening to our van window, Larry jumped & screamed and rolled up his window as fast as he could.  The rest of us jumped when the buffalo moved, too, but then we all laughed til we were crying.  Larry...my big strong man....shrieking & jumping.  Man, it was hilarious!  He then proceeded to drive forward a little bit to get away from the buffalo and said something akin to "Lord forgive me".  I asked what he was talking about (because I had not seen/heard him sin) & he said "Umm, I said something...we drove through some piles of it back there." but the kids thought he said he'd run over the buffalo.  LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  They were all concerned but Larry & I were laughing too hard to correct them for a while!!  We finally regained our composure & moved on.

We had to cross another cattle guard to move into the area where the zebras were.  Oh wow...so beautiful!

As we wound down our safari, we saw more pretty animals who would approach us to get a bite of the tasty food pellets we were given at the beginning of the drive.

As we left the drive thru area, I spotted this deer off in a distance & zoomed to get this shot.  See it?

It was a great day together.  Everyone came in to take a nap for a while & get a little rest before we go out to wash the van.  It's filthy!  The drive thru place was all a dry red dirt, so the whole van looks a little orange.  We're going to wash the van & eat supper in a short while and then head to bed a little early to get rested up for day 2 of the Reeves Stay-Cation!

See ya tomorrow!