7 Posts in 7 Days - Family Vacation

Linking up with Jen to hopefully get back to regular blogging as our summer winds down!


We took a little miniature family vacation.  We didn't have any extra money for a vacation this year.  Well, we haven't for a few years :-).  But we did have a free hotel night!  So we decided to go to a nearby town, just an hour away and check out some kid-friendly activities that were pretty inexpensive.

So we started with a trip to the zoo.  Their zoo's not a whole lot bigger than our little tiny zoo, but it does have an Africa exhibit.  Which includes giraffes.  Which makes a certain two year old in my house very, very happy!  She has always loved giraffes and she was way excited!

Anthony really loved the lion and tigers and he was roaring all over the zoo.





We had a little picnic lunch after the zoo and then went to the hotel for some naps.  Naptime was a complete disaster, once we got the kids to sleep, the hotel manager called to make sure our room was alright, waking both of our sleeping children up.  After an hour of wrestling them back to sleep, we finally managed an hour rest out of everyone.

After that, we headed back to the zoo for a little bit and then went to dinner.  We went to Texas Roadhouse and the kids absolutely loved the rolls.  Anna called their special butter, "ice cream butter" and proceeded to eat it with a spoon... 

He wasn't super happy that I made him stop eating to take a picture with me!

And she just said, "I'll just keep eating while you snap a picture, mom!"

After dinner, we hit up the hotel pool and the kids had lots of fun swimming.

Dipping her toes in the "hot pool"

We watched a movie while the kids slept (or Anna tried to sleep) and had a relaxing evening with some ice cream. 

Causing a ruckus in the lobby.

The next day, true to form, the kids were up at the crack of dawn.  Which meant we got to take full advantage of the continental breakfast, eating bright and early at 7am and then having snack again at 9 before they closed.  In between we swam again.

Bright and early, watching Mickey Mouse.  At least it bought me another half hour in bed...

 On Saturday, we headed out to a bounce house play place.  Anna absolutely loved every minute of it.  She jumped and climbed and went down slides and did way more than we expected.  She's not scared of anything and is a total daredevil.  Anthony had plenty of fun saying "hi" to all of the other people there and crawling around on the mats.  He did a little jumping, but wasn't too fond of the closed in spaces.

We were surprised by her ability to climb just about anything.  I could hardly climb them!

We cracked up when we were looking at the pictures later and realized that I'd sat them under the "not responsible for stolen items sign."  They're not stolen, I promise :-)

After Monkey Joes, we headed home to get them good naps.  After some less than stellar napping on Friday and staying up way too late at night and then getting up with the sun, they were exhausted.  It made me really glad we didn't have any big vacation plans, one night was enough for a 2 and 1 year old.

When we got home, we set up the pools and sprinklers in our newly fenced in yard and had a fun time playing in the yard.  We ordered pizza (a huge treat for us) and had a picnic in the shade.

Checking out the new fence.

All in all, it was a much needed break from the daily routine.  We got to spend time with just our family and we all enjoyed our adventures.  Hopefully in a few years, finances and older children allow us to take a big vacation.  But until then, we'll enjoy our short adventures :-).