Summer has always been a favorite time of mine. Back when we lived in Ohio, it seemed we always had something to do. Almost everything we wanted to do was free. Between the Children's Discovery Garden at Wegerzyn Gardens, Young's Jersey Dairy, and the countless community pools, we always had something to do. Not to mention all of the other FREE splash pads and parks. We pay $2 per person to get into the county parks here. When we first moved to Florence, I was appalled to find out that splash pads weren't free there or even here for that matter. As much crime and other things that go on in Dayton, I really did value the beautiful parks, and summer programs that were offered for kids. I haven't found anything here that even compares to Cox Arboretum or Wegerzyn Gardens that's free. If any locals have any free or cheap suggestions please please link them to me! I want to know what they are!
My mom and dad were in town the 9th-17th. It's always so quiet here after they leave. Minus all of the crying, because we all miss them so much. Before they got here, I tried investigating some fun things to do while they were here, that weren't going to break the bank. It was tougher than you think. Don't get me wrong, there are some BEAUTIFUL places to visit. Tons of plantations, ships, waterparks, and more, but they would all cost a small fortune for our family plus 2 more. So I settled on a couple ideas. I knew for sure we all wanted at least one beach day. We still had the waterpark passes from when scout day was rained out, and we have really been wanting to visit Bee City.
I'm a planner. A BIG planner. I hate when things don't go as planned. I've learned to just go with the flow now, and that's exactly what we had to do this week. ORIGINALLY, I had planned on going to Bee City after an early morning birthday party Saturday, the beach on Sunday, mom and me day on Monday, and the waterpark on Tuesday. The kids, especially Kayla, were SO excited to go to their friend Sophie's party. She was going to have a large water slide. In the Early early morning on Saturday (about 2am) Kayla woke up with a horrible fever of 103.8 and stomach pain. I put a cold cloth on her head, gave her some tylenol and waited for the fever to go down before allowing her to go back to bed on her own. After about an hour, it went down to about 102.6 and we put her back to bed. It had been a few days since she had gone to the bathroom, so we figured that was what it was. When she woke up in the "real" am her fever was back up to 103, so I ran her over to Roper Express Care and she saw my awesome doctor, Dr. Hyson. He didn't feel it was anything to be concerned about. It seemed to be gastro related. Told us to give her some miralax and to drink plenty of water and she should be good to go. She was devastated that she didn't get to go to the party.
The boy's had a blast at the party. Then this happened to Landen's cochlear battery. I temporarily fixed it with some mod podge. It finay completely gave out yesterday after one of the prongs broke off.
When we got home from the doctor Kayla finally went to the bathroom a little and felt much much better. Her fever went away and all seemed well. So off to Bee City we went. It was a bit longer of a drive than I had anticipated. We got out of the car and immediately wanted to climb back in to the cool air. IT WAS HOT OUT! Such dry hot air. Joey the Spider Monkey just happened to be out for a walk when we got there. He was loving on an older lady, and she looked quite pleased. I sat down near him and he came right over to me and snuggled. It was quite epic really. I didn't get a picture of our first encounter.
After I got up Landen sat down and got a little snuggle too.
This was Landen's third time visiting Bee City and everyone else's first. He drug us around by the nose, telling us all what everything was.
The nature center was pretty cool. Landen held an alligator. He wasn't so sure about at at first but he got the hand of it. I touched it's tail. That was about as close as I got. This isn't so surprising to me, but asked question after question after question. He loves knowledge.
Normally I'm not able to even go into buildings that I know snakes are going to be in(I'm ABSOLUTELY terrified), but I feel like I did pretty good this time around. This guy seemed curious. There was even a girl holding a snake just behind the guy and I barley flinched.
Seriously, he was all up in our biz.
When the guy says he's going to get something really special out of the pouch hanging behind him, we all took one step back. We had no idea what he was going to pull out. It turns out it was a flying squirrel.
Alligator Snapping Turtle
Yeah, that's a Tarantula in that mans hand! Thankfully mom left the building well before this or we all would have been in trouble.
Peekabutt Portajohn
Don't you just want to SQUEEZE those cheekers?!
Kayla NEVER feeds the animals at petting zoos. This one just caught her heart. She loved him.
It was all fun and games until these guys decided to spit at me while I was in close range taking cute and cuddly pictures of them. I was covered with foul smelling whatever. So gross. I wanted nothing more to do with them after that. LOL
I LOVE CHICKENS! I can only count the days until we can finally move into a place that is big enough to have some chickens.
This guy bit Mark on the hand.
So much prettier in person! So so pretty.
Joey decided to come say hello and give me a hug. This was the most memorable moment of the day!
Joey said hello to Mark too. Even gave him a pat on the back and a sincere double handed hug!
There are so many more pictures than what I can post on this blog. With that being said, Bee City is very worth the $7 per person! There is a lot of fun to be had and very very educational. Hopefully next time it won't be so miserably hot!
Mom and Dad's visit to be continued.....
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