Wild Animals oh my!

Well we visited the Pine Mountain Wild Animal Park today. It's been open for many many years and I've never been and wow - that's about all I can say! We get there and keep in mind I don't know anything about it. I ask what do we do - we want to see animals - my son (Gabe) loves animals! She says there's a drive thru section and a walk through section. For the drive thru you can drive your own vehicle or for $11 more you can use their zebra print ones (basic run down but drive-able mini vans). I said "what should we do?!" Keep in mind I know nothing, well thank goodness she says well "sometimes" the animals get pretty close and they do have horns/antlers. And me with a new Honda Pilot I said $11 is petty cash, we'll take the Zebra print van for $11! THANK GOODNESS! Basically in this park all 400,000 animals are right up on top of your vehicle (you can feed them from your vehicle and they know it). My Aunt Bobbie kept reminding me of the commercial where an elephant sits on the hood of a tourist car. Well good news there aren't any elephants in this park but there were lions, tigers (these were in cages), camels, giraffes, buffalo, elk, zebras, pigs (all of these roamed everywhere and would have sat on your laps if we had opened the van door)! We started the car tour and the animals we waiting impatiently. Gabe did not care for it, the animals plain scared the mess out of him. I'm looking forward to nightmares starting tonight. It took about 30 minutes (half of the drive around the park) for him to get calmer and then he was all about trying to get my Aunt Bobbie to hand feed these animals - right into happening! Some of them have huge horns! After all this we did the walking bit and it was nice and Gabe enjoyed it but didn't quite understand why climbing fences wasn't allowed! Wow! Not sure about another visit! It's a great place to visit for a tad older children but if you aren't for keeping animals in their non-habitat then I wouldn't recommend.

How long does Halloween last?

3 days for us! Halloween . . . it's a busy time. Gabe had a wonderfully cute Jester outfit that was passed down from his nephew (Tyler) but was missing one of the booties so I purchased him cute little Penguin outfit to wear and the booty was found in Cincy so Gabe had not one but two cute outfits for Halloween - thank goodness Halloween lasted several days (did I say that?!). Okay Wednesday night we headed to my old Church (my mom's Church) for their Fall Festival - this is where we learned Gabe LOVES lollipops! He did a great job at all the games and enjoyed to the fullest digging in the bowls of candy for the lollipops! I think he totalled 3 lollipops that night and went to bed on time thank you very much! They had 2 miniature ponies which Gabe kept yelling "HORSES". So I said sure let's put you on one and at least take a picture - NOT! First we've realized just because you love saying a word doesn't mean you want to touch and second Gabe must have jinxed the camera - didn't work but only for that moment - it continued to work after we grabbed the screaming child off the miniature pony having a heart-attack. So no photos - sorry. Night 2 was in Valley, AL. The tri-cities (Valley, Lanett, West Point) celebrated Halloween the night before due to playoff football games Halloween night. So off we went to Nanna's. They had "Trunk or Treat" down there and I believe the entire city was there. But the craziness didn't slow Gabe down but he learned a lot about being patient! Gabe I don't believe ever knew you had to wait in a line to do something but to ride the train that is what he had to do. And that's where the lollipops started again! How many lollipops can be eaten waiting for a train - LOTS! In addition to the train due to way too many kids, Gabe stayed on the "trunk" of his Nanna's and passed out candy . . . or ATE the candy! Overall, 5 lollipops, 2 miniature peanut butter cups, sweet tarts, a peanut butter log (small), and some nerds and the boy was only 30 minutes late to bed - not bad - I do believe he takes sugar well! Day 3 of Halloween started with a Halloween parade at school - so so funny how parents surround edges of the gym pointing, shooting cameras and videos of the kids dressed up parading around the floor. There's no wonder why some kids don't make it around but once. That'll be Gabe, he made it around once then wanted Mom and I was able to get him back into the parade the last round by walking with me and his precious little girlfriends (whom he has a love hate relationship with - they love each other so but are the typical couple - has their fights which leads to their timeouts!). Okay we've now made it to Halloween night - we basically hit a house or two treat or tricking and then went up to our Church, First Baptist and did some carnival activities and once again he loves all the games but I believe the best part was the lollipops - I think we were back to 3 for the night. And since it was Halloween we let him stay up late but due to the long long week - he didn't make it, fall fast asleep and it's been a week with no LOLLIPOP!

Fall with the Shaws

Howdy - It's been a bit - let's see if I can remember everything that's been going on! For the most part this fall has flown by and before you know it Gabe's going to be 2 (1 week away!!!!) Life is so so different from the times I could come home from work and relax. Thank goodness for TiVo that's all I have to say! Okay to begin the Fall we hit the Atlanta Aquarium. I put going off long enough - I was trying to let some of the newness wear off since the Atlanta Aquarium is fairly new but since the boy has been showing so much interest in "fish" I figured the time had come and it wasn't too crowded. We had a fabulous time. I would dare to say the Penguins impressed him the most. He loved those penquins. We even let him pick something out of the gift shop afterwards (something I was never allowed to do - thanks parents) and he chose a penguin which he quickly named Ping! We'll definitely go back but we're thinking about stepping it up and going to Seaworld next summer in FL - I have a best friend, Tiffany whom lives near Seaworld, maybe she can show us the ropes. Okay, trip two was to the beach, our last of the year sadly but it was a wonderful trip to Seabrook Island near Charleston with some of our closest friends (Beth, Dan, and Fenn whom is not quite a year younger than Gabe). Leading up to this trip we spoke about the "beach" so much I think Gabe thought Fenn's name was "Beach". At the beach we had a great RELAXING time. We rented bikes (Gabe liked day 1 but not so much day 2 - never quite understood why his dad had to be in front of him?!) It was chilly but we made it out on the beach both days and the weather was fabulous, water was a little chilly for me but the boys loved it! I think Gabe made a good friend in Fenn aka Beach, we were a little worried since Gabe's a little older - he might teach him some bad tricks?! But I don't think Gabe did too much damage. Overall we loved our beach trip and hoping it can be a yearly trip. A big thanks to our friends, Pipers! Finally we've made it to Tech for a game, sort of. We ventured up to Georgia Tech for Homecoming this year but decided against going to the game - we were hoping to see the "Wreck Parade" but this Saturday morning Gabe decided to sleep in and I hated to wake him. So we got to Atlanta at the tail-end of the parade but still were able to meet up with a lot of ZTA sorority sisters whom I haven't seen in years. And we were even able to meet up with Uncle Jeff (he had come in as well for the game from Cincy). And sorry no photos - we can't remember everything on trips - I forgot the camera (and I hate that because they have all the cool Buzzes around campus painted with different themes and Gabe wanted to hug them all). Well that about it up to Halloween and stay tuned for the next posting on that!