Zoo, Aquarium and Botanical Gardens

Albuquerque has this really awesome thing called the Bio Park. It's 3 parks in one. The zoo, the aquarium and the botanical gardens. The zoo is large enough that it would probably take all day long. But, the ticket is only $12 for adults and $5 for kids for all three parks (and the price includes riding the train in between - there are 2 different locations about 2 miles apart). It's really amazing what you get for the price!

Get ready for tons more pictures!!

The Zoo:

Grandpa teaching Bria. He is a history teacher, you know. He has a wealth of knowledge.

Watching the peacock

Lunch at the Zoo. It was YUMMY!

To Ellorie. From Bria. She wished you could have been here with her!

At the Duck Pond

Bria was hot and tired. But, I love this picture. She looks so beautiful.

King of the Jungle.

The Train:

Logan's new obsession.

Waiting to board.

On the ride back.

The Aquarium:

Max requested this picture in front of the turtle. I miss his Finding Nemo days. He loved Nemo when he was 2.

Another exhausted day! At least he learned to sleep in the stroller!

Bria, Bion, Max, Payson, Orion and Addibelle

The Botanical Gardens:

The botanical gardens are one of my favorite places in Albuquerque. They are huge! I've never seen the whole thing!

This is in the Children's garden. It's so fun to watch the kids run and play here.

This would be a beautiful place for a wedding.

They have a huge village set up with a long train track. Even Thomas likes it here!

He's growing up so much!

Happy Birthday Bion!

The first stop on our family vacation was Albuquerque. We haven't been back for two whole years! It was so nice to be back home for a while. The kids kept complaining about the heat....but I've gotta tell ya....it felt good! It was nice to not be cold in any part of the day.

BION'S BIRTHDAY!

Our trip worked almost perfectly with my nephew's birthday. We were one day late, but he was nice and postponed the celebration until we got there! Grandma arranged a fun party at Hinkle Family Fun Center. It was SO much fun!

Hinkle boasts about all their fun activities...and they have a lot! Miniature Golf, Laser Tag, Rock Wall Climbing, Go Karts, Paintball, Bumper boats and bumper cars two HUGE arcades, and a really fun game called "Lazer Frenzy" (Think Catherine Zeta-Jones in Entrapment when she acrobats her way through the lazers. It's pretty awesome!) The fun thing about Hinkle is that you can choose one activity, or get a pass to try them all. We got the pass and spent over 3 hours there and still didn't get to do everything!

Happy Birthday, Bion! We're glad we got to spend your special day with you!

Here's a whole bunch of pictures!!

Orion

Grandpa likes to pretend he's grumpy.

This was the first time our kids have gone miniature golfing. It was a fun experience!

 Go Karts were next. The kids had to ride with a grown-up, so Dave and I got to be the designated drivers!

Dave rode with Bria and I rode with Bion

Me and Orion

Dave and Max

 We gave the rock wall a try. That was a first for everyone in our family. It's really harder than it looks! I'll never judge it as a wimpy sport again!

Bria was REALLY nervous!

The two of us tried to go up at the same time, but she was too worried about falling

Dave and Max went together.

Dave got up the farthest. That's my man!

Orion's turn

Orion on the bumper boats

Bria squiring water on the boats.

You're supposed to shoot down the other boats with water. We just let the kids go on this one. No need to get my hair messed up, right?

Logan could not stay awake! I can't believe he slept in his stroller so well! He's such a cutie!

I had to put another picture of Logan because we didn't get very many. He was such a messy boy by this point!

Bion's HUGE awesome Green Lantern cake. The bakery messed up and made a full sheet cake. It was at least enough to feed 100!

Beginning a vacation

We took an awesome vacation this year! Looking back at the pictures, I don't know how I will ever catch up on the blog! Here are a few quick facts from our trip:

10 days

2,339 miles

591 pictures

4 cousins
a grandma and grandpa
a zoo
a train ride
4 Presidents
and 6 states!!!

We have amazing kids when it comes to travel! Amazing! It's not that they are perfect. But, they've learned that long car rides can be fun. We've learned quite a few tricks over the years. The first long car ride we took with kids was when Bria was only 9 months old. They've pretty much grown up with road trips.

This year, we did a couple of things different. First of all....we love, love, love DVD players. We can't always get our kids to watch a whole movie at home, but on the road when they are stuck, they love watching movies. This trip, we took full advantage of Redbox. You can pick them up and drop them off ANYWHERE and we did! It was completely worth the $10ish dollars we spent.

Also, before we left, I made these cute bags for each of the kids:

We went to Walmart and the kids all picked out their own fabric (except for Logan....but that wasn't very hard to figure out!)

The most awesome part?

Yep! They are crayon bags!! I think they may soon be church bags, too. They were super easy to sew. You can get the pattern here (it looks like the lady is on vacation right now, but the pattern is only $4.50). The only thing to consider is that crayons melt in hot cars. We unfortunately were reminded of that from experience. It looks like Bria will be getting a second crayon bag in the near future.

The other new thing I did this vacation is how I packed the kids clothes. I found the idea here last year and have wanted to try it ever since. My bags weren't quite as organized as hers, but they pretty much worked the same!

Okay...if you are saying to yourself...."I don't care about any of this! Where are the vacation pictures!?!", then please accept my apologies. We have SO many, and I'm sure you'll more than get your fill. I'll post them as quickly as I can . I have to get this blog caught up! We have other important blog-worthy events on the calendar.