Vacation, Louisville style day 3

Day #3 of Vacation in Louisville started off a little slower than the previous two days.  Steve had classes to attend in the morning, but planned on being finished by around 11:30.  So, we decided to stay at the hotel and take our time getting ready so that he could join in the fun for the day.  Well, the boys decided that getting up before 8am was a wonderful idea...what kind of vacation is this?!   I tried entertaining them in the room, and this is the result...

Please note that we disconnected the phones as soon as we arrived in the room on day #1.  Because I've told you what my boys do with phones.  But there were 2 phones in the room, so the boys were able to "call" each other...

After about an hour, I decided that two boys cooped up in a hotel room was not a good idea. So we decided to take an adventure walk.

Our hotel room was on the 10th floor, but there were 17 floors (really 16, but they skipped numbering the 13th floor).  So, we hopped on the elevator and went up to check out the view from the top floor.  Here's the Louisville skyline as seen from the 17th floor of the Louisville Marriott downtown, facing north towards the Ohio river.

This next photo is pretty cool.  That black spot in the middle is actually a spider on the outside of the window.  I think it was alive...I thought it was cool because it's on the 17th floor and because I saw one on the outside of the Sear's Tower in Chicago when I was little and have always wondered how it got that high up!

So, the other thing that we did was take a walk though the lobby.  We didn't have internet in our room because it would have cost us $13 PER DAY!  But they had free wi-fi on the first and second floors.  So we went to the second floor and I checked my email.  They we used the skywalk to walk over to the convention center.  The boys thought it was really cool, so I made them race back and forth about 5 times.  It was the length of the city block and I thought it might help them to burn some of their energy.  I got a lot of weird looks, but it worked!

Finally Steve was finished and joined us for the afternoon.  We hopped in the car and found a Chick-Fil-A and the boys were ecstatic!  We let them play for a little bit and then they turned in their toy for an ice cream cone...yum!

Our destination for the afternoon was Henry's Ark.  It's an animal rescue and petting zoo.  I had no idea what to expect because they don't have a website, but I found some favorable reviews and thought the boys would enjoy it.  I was right!  It was chilly on Friday, but we bundled up and it was fine thanks to the sun being out!  There was no admission charge to the petting zoo, but donations were accepted in a donation box.

The first animal you see when you walk in is an ostrich!  He (or she) came right over and we were able to pet it.

This goat was wandering around and the boys thought it was so cool.  I had picked up a bag of carrots (10 lbs!) at Kroger right before arriving, so we fed the goat some.

They had a pond for the ducks as well as some other animals.  That goat just kept following us :)

Zebras!?  Yep, we got to pet them and feed them carrots!

I'm pretty sure this is a Yak.  There were signs posted on the fence, but this one was in the barn and didn't have a sign there.  Whatever it was, it was big!

The goats tried to get out and get our carrots.

I think this was a water buffalo?  It was big and wouldn't come eat the carrot, but we tried!

In addition to Water Buffalo, Yaks, goats and ostrich, there were also sheep, ducks, camels, dogs and cats, bison, peacocks and emu!  Definitely the best petting zoo we've ever been to!  I took a video of feeding the Ostrich right before we left the petting zoo.  Please excuse the sound...it was windy that day!

When we got back to the hotel, my husband took the kids swimming in the pool and I hopped on the treadmill for a few minutes to myself!  It was great to get on there and run to relieve some of the stress of being on vacation with 3 little kids!  We got back to the room and the boys enjoyed an extended bath time with their snorkels and goggles :)  Steve had an awards dinner to attend Friday night, so the boys and I did take out from Champion's which was located in the lobby of the hotel.

Day #3 was a success!

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Vacation, Louisville style day 2

On our first day of vacation, the highlight was the Louisville Zoo.  Our second day was rainy so we decided to check out the Louisville MegaCaverns.  These caverns were old Limestone quarries and they take jeep guided tours through the caverns.  I found the info online and then saw a brochure at the concierge desk and decided the boys might enjoy it.  I really wanted to do a real cave, but I thought at 2 and 4, the boys really aren't ready for spelunking!

In some ways, this cavern tour was great.  We rode on a trailer the entire time, I learned a lot on the trip, I didn’t have to yell at the boys for touching things they weren’t supposed to, Molly stayed in her car seat the entire time and slept, and we saw some pretty cool things.  But in other ways, I didn’t think it was worth the money.  It cost just shy of $20 for me and the three kids.  Ryan and Molly were free (under 3), so I just had to pay for Tyler and myself.  I did get a $2 off coupon from the concierge desk at our hotel, so if I wouldn’t have had that, it would have been over the $20.

A couple of the things I learned….the difference between a cavern and a cave is that a cavern is man-made.  The Louisville caverns are around 100 acres in size and around 90 feet under the city (mainly the Zoo!)  There are approximately 18 different business that use the caverns for storage (data, equipment, or supplies), including PODS, private individuals storing boats, cars and RV’s, and even the city of Louisville.  The Louisville Caverns became privately owned in the late 1980’s but before then was originally a limestone quarry and was even a fallout shelter during WWII.

One of the highlights of the Louisville caverns is that they have a zip line and ropes course tour.  Our hotel concierge actually highly recommended that and said the tour was just so-so.  I really wanted to do the ropes course tour, but obviously with 3 kids in tow that wasn’t an option.  I think if I were to ever go back, I would definitely skip the cavern tour in favor of the zip line!

So, after the caverns, we headed to the Mall at St. Matthews.  While we didn’t actually make it into the mall, I was able to go to one of my favorite stores that Cincinnati no longer has…World Market!  My plan was to hit a couple stores and then go to Chick-Fil-A for lunch with the kids.  We don’t make it there very often, but the boys love playing in there.  I figured it would be a good incentive for behaving while I shopped.  Unfortunately, the Chick-Fil-A was under renovations and wasn’t open!  The kids thought I was making it up because they could see the Chick-Fil-A and they could see the play area but couldn’t read the signs saying it was closed.  I had two very unhappy kids!

By the time I circled around trying to find another place to eat, it was late and so I just decided to go to McDonald’s.  While we do go to McDonald’s a lot because the one in our town has a great play place, I think I have only purchased the boys kids meals there once or twice, so I treated them to the kids meal of their choice.  They got two “cool” MegaMind toys that shoot, so they had lost of fun playing with them the rest of the day.  That kinda made up for the no Chick-Fil-A…though I would have been much happier with the first choice!  I still don’t think that Tyler gets the whole vacation thing though, because when we decided on McDonald’s for lunch he said, “OK, let’s go to McDonalds and then we can go on bay-cation again after lunch.” J

After lunch, we went back to the hotel and caught up with my husband.  The afternoon schedule for his convention was just the exhibition hall and since he had already visited all of the vendors he wanted to see, he was able to hang out with us for a few hours.  We took the kids swimming in the hotel pool.  It was great because we were the only ones in the pool so it was like having a private swimming session.  I had taken swim jackets as well as floats for the boys and they were in heaven!  The only pool we normally swim at is the YMCA pool and they don’t allow floats so it really was a treat for the boys.

Also, it was Molly’s first real swimming experience.  We have taken her to the Y twice but she slept the entire first time and the second time I had her in a baby carrier and only got her feet in the water.  This time she got in up to her neck and even enjoyed time in a float!   She didn’t cry at all, so I have a feeling she’s going to be a water bug just like the boys.

For dinner, Steve had to go back to the convention and I didn’t feel like taking the boys out by myself again so we decided to have a pizza and movie night.  I know, we had pizza for lunch on day #1, but we don’t normally order pizza at home, so I didn’t mind having it 2 days in a row.  Plus, it was really the only restaurant within walking distance that had easy takeout (at least that I could find via the GPS thing).  The boys enjoyed pizza and a VeggieTales movie and I enjoyed not having to get them to sit still and eat their dinner.  After all, this is my vacation as well!

All in all, day #2 of vacation was a hit.

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Teacher Gifts continued

Today, I am showing you some links for teacher gifts I found.

First, howdoesshe has a super cute idea for a "12 days of Christmas" themed gift.  You have to check this one out  - it's adorable.


This idea comes with a cute poem describing all the ways a teacher makes a difference.  Cute, touching, and inexpensive:


This one is so beautiful.  If you have one special teacher to buy for (or you're a teacher yourself), I think this one is amazing.  The price is reasonable ($39), but higher than I can spend on a teacher's gift, especially since we have more than one.  But still, I really love this one.



This one from Modern Parents, Messy Kids isn't very "Christmasy" so you may want to modify it a little with some holiday looking additions.  I really love the saying on the bookmark, and the template to print it is available free at this link.

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Vacation, Louisville Style day 1

This past week we were in Louisville for a mini-vacation, or "bay-cation" as my boys like to call it.  Louisville is not my destination of choice, but my husband was going there for a conference and we decided it would be nice to tag along.  You see, the kids have never been on a vacation.  The only time they have ever spent the night away from the house is to go to relatives’ houses at the holidays and we have taken 1 or 2 weekends and camped at a state park about 20 minutes from our house.  So, this was their first hotel experience and their first experience “exploring” another city!

We started out the vacation by going in to Steve’s employer’s shop.  Yeah, really exciting, right?  Well, while we were there the kids got to see one of the bucket trucks….pretty cool for a 2 and 4 year old boy!  Then we made a quick pit-stop at my in-laws house to drop off the dog and then headed across the river “Anderson Ferry Style”.  If you’ve ever been on the West Side of Cincinnati, you probably know that getting across the river can be a little more fun than just going across a bridge.  They have a ferry that runs all the time and for $4 your kids can have something to talk about for a long time!  It was pretty cool for the kids to see us drive onto a boat and then go across the river.  Oh, and the GPS was pretty funny, too.  It asked us if we wanted to switch to “pedestrian mode”…guess the ferry isn’t fast enough to register as a moving vehicle J

 

Then began the fun part of driving the 1.5 hours to Louisville.  Not a far drive at all, but last week our car DVD player went kaput.  So we plugged in the iPod and jammed our way to Louisville.  When we got there we dropped Steve off at the Convention Center so he could do his thing and we went to do ours.  We stopped at Papa John’s for lunch.  Why Papa John’s?  Because it was founded here in Louisville and also because my husband is a die-hard LaRosa’s pizza lover and we never get to have Papa John’s with him!  The store we stopped at was on Bardstown Road, and they had a really cool setup where the kids could watch them make our pizza (including spinning the dough) and watch it go through the oven. 

Our first activity in Louisville was the Louisville Zoo!  We are members of the Cincinnati Zoo and the boys love to go there, so I thought it would be fun for all of us to explore another zoo.  I was a little bummed to find out that even though I had called the week before our trip to find out the reciprocity agreement,  I was giving the wrong information.  For those of you who have Cincinnati Zoo memberships, you get in ½ price at the Louisville Zoo.  The person I spoke with on the phone had said it was free.  I ended up paying, but I complained at the membership department and they gave me a carousel pass for each of the kids as well as a small stuffed polar bear for each of them.

Anyway, the Louisville zoo was a lot of fun.  Because our trip was in October, the entire place was setup for Halloween.  I’ve never been to the Louisville Zoo before, so I’m not sure what all is special and what is typically up, but they had a cool Wizzard of Oz setup (probably there all the time), “Finding Nemo” paintings/backdrops, a palace and Halloween decorations all over the place.  We got some cute photos!

While the zoo was a lot of walking, they had a pretty cool setup.  Some of the animals were the same as the Cincinnati Zoo, but many were different.  Louisville zoo had pelicans (above), Orangutans (below), an albino Alligator, camels, grizzly bears, seals, a baby polar bear, and probably some others that we didn’t get a chance to go see.

My favorite exhibits were the orangutans, penguins and grizzly bears.  The orangutans were cool because we got to get really close to them.  They were behind glass, so unlike the gorilla exhibit at the Cincinnati zoo, I didn’t feel like we were going to get things thrown at us!

'I thought the penguins (below) were also cool because their exhibit looked a lot like the one in “Happy Feet”!  They were behind glass as well, but we could hear them “talking” which was pretty cool.

  

My absolute favorite exhibit was the grizzly bears, seals and polar bear exhibit.  This was one huge complex that looked like it was fairly new.  On one end, the seals had a swimming pool and an arena and stage for shows.  I really wanted to stay for a show, but it would have meant waiting around for about an hour and I just couldn’t do that to the boys.  Then there was a bigger section with grizzly bears.  They were having a lot of fun the day they went and even got into a little (play) fight.  Check out the video I took!

Both the seals and grizzly bear exhibits had above ground viewing and below water viewing.  Both of these viewing options were great on the day we went and we were able to see the animals both ways. 

 By the time we made it to the Artic exhibit, both kids were getting tired, so we quickly viewed the Rhinos, giraffe, Zebras and Camels on our way to the exit.  I wanted to go see the Lions and the gorillas, but the kids both said they wanted to go so I got overruled.  I did tell you that we have a zoo membership because the kids love going, right?!  Secretly, it’s one of my favorite things my mom did with us as kids and I LOVE to go as well!

So, the boys’ favorite thing of the day?  I asked them and they unanimously said, “The merry-go-round”.  Seriously?  Yep, that was their favorite.  The ride was longer than the one in Cincinnati, so that was nice, but the boys were a little disappointed that all of the “cool” animals didn’t go up and down and they could only ride on the horses if they wanted to move.  Molly rode on the carousel as well, but she was asleep in the Baby Bjorn for the ride!

After the zoo, we came back to meet up with Steve, get checked into the hotel (downtown Marriott!) and relax a little before dinner.  The boys loved it when they found out we were going to get to SLEEP here.  Tyler kept saying all day, “I want to do bay-cation all day.”  AKA, he didn’t want vacation to end!  We kept telling him that vacation was going to last a few days, but I have a feeling that now that they know what vacation is, they are going to be asking to go all the time J.

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