Kentucky Horse Park

FIELD TRIP!

We love field trips! The kids look at it as all fun, I look at it as a way to learn outside the home. If you have anyone in your family that loves horses, this is the park to visit! We were there off season so we missed seeing a lot of the shows and events they have throughout the year, but it was still a blast!

First thing we decided to do was grab the carriage tour. Horses with feet the size of your head pull a wagon around while someone tells you more about the park. Tip: Sit close to the front. There’s no speakers (for good reason… I imagine microphone feedback and horses do not mix well) in the wagon, it was windy when we were at the park and it was close to closing time so I think our guide was tired. It was really cool to get a quick history of the park and what every barn was right away though! Big help in our exploring.

These horses were awesome! We found them in the barn designated for world breed's. Marwari’s are very rare horses. I recommend you do a little research on these guys. They are tuff and TALL! Their ears touch together at the top of their head. This guy was incredibly interested in what was going on outside his stall but did visit with us briefly. All the people working that we came across were super sweet to the animals.

 

 The history lesson began in the museum. Paul Revere, Comanche and horses use in the World Wars were just some of the information we gleaned. It was really neat to see so much information about horses, breeds and how they have interacted with humans throughout the years. 

We loved seeing all the Secretariat memorabilia and the kids loved the Black Stallion section of the museum.

The museum is HUGE though! We did find ourselves not reading everything and hurrying through at the end. It was a lot to take in!

The Arabian area had a neat program to engage the kids though and they could “take a horse” through the displays with them creating a scrapbook page to email to themselves for later. It was the highlight of the museum for one of our kids.

All in all the museum and grounds were beautiful, fun to explore and a perfect place to use up several hours of your afternoon. Definitely check out the children’s barns! We had it all to ourselves and the kids loved just racing around in it and pretending they were horses over the little jumps even. We enjoyed our visit!

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Camping

We went. We survived. We will do it again!

My Husband and I have a lot of fond memories of camping with our families. We have always wanted to continue these with our children. So once, a long time ago, we tried. It was a complete disaster! (More about that another time….) So we tried a few more times with backup adults around us and had more success. It was time to try a solo camping trip again with our little brood. They are all much older than the first time so it was bound to go better. Right? It started out with setting up the beast. Our tent. LOVE this tent. It has closets!

And a PORCH!

So yah… this is my kind of tent camping! (Note to self: Area rug would be better than a tablecloth. Next time…)

Hubby is an excellent campfire chef and had meals with little problems ready for us to eat. We ate pre-mixed gingerbread pancakes, hamburgers, corn on the cob, chicken kabobs, sandwiches and more. I packed way too many snacks but taking bottled water instead of coolers and cups was perfect! We also ate way too many s’mores. (Note to self: Pack screened in tent at all costs. The flies were worse beggers than our dogs!)

Our kids experienced freedom in the neat empty campground that they rarely get anywhere else due to cars, people, etc just being everywhere. They played at the park non-stop, we went swimming several times and the hikes to the bathroom weren’t grumbled against… except for the several times that my kids tripped on roots and scraped their knees. I guess we are better outfitted for flat ground?! (Note to self: Dark comes FAST at campgrounds. Always be sure to have flashlights handy and issue them to children when they head to the bathroom after dinner. OH and walkie talkies would have been very beneficial. Very.)

We did NOT try this slide.
Doesn’t this just say, “call 911” all over it?!

This was more than a 10 foot drop down. (shudder)

One of my younger ones brought this little tidbit to me with some amazing information:

“Isn’t this a syrup leaf?”
Wow… I guess they all pay attention during field trips! We are always impressed by the memory of this little one.

To finish off this rather nice camping trip (that did have maddening, yet funny now, moments of getting locked off the campgrounds, having unfixable hole in an air mattress, loss of food in the campfire during flipping, etc) we took the scenic route home and stumbled across this:

A purple martin sanctuary! I had never before seen so many birdhouses in one place. There were more on the other side of the house. Their mosquito population must be ZIP!

So what was your last camping trip like?
Do you camp? Tent or RV?

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Summer Camp Experience

I am at Summer Camp. Yes. I am. My oldest kiddo is here with me too… or I am here with them? Whichever it is… WE are here. This is a new experience for me and I have to say, I’m not enjoying most of it. Hahahaha! Seriously though. I am so glad kids are oblivious to disorganization! This place is just a mess! It’s clean (somewhat) and fun (for the kids… when it’s not raining). It’s just not what I’d called… logistically correct. There’s my Hubbie coming out in me.

Anyway, here’s what I’ve done so far:


I’ve driven WAY too far in the fog. This was my longest trip, ever, as a solo driver. My kid has learned to read a map. :)


SUMMER camp with no sun. Not so fun. I am thrilled with the mountains though! They prevent nasty, rotating clouds, like this one, from staying around long. PHEW! (This was closer than it appears in my tiny little picture.)


Trees are WET. Don’t run into them… or under them. Especially when teens are around. Hehehe…. Although, it’s fun to stand and WATCH when someone else walks under them with teens around. Hehehe…


Wildlife is everywhere and really close! Fortunately, that doesn’t bother me too much. These little webs are dinky too. The skunks on the other hand? Little nerve wracking… keep your area free of food and you are fine. Glad skunks are mostly blind too. EEP!

So there… Camp, in a few photos.

I am linking this no where near Wordless Wednesday post to:
5 Minutes for Mom

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Does RV Cooking Measure Up?

This is our second week home from our vacation and I must say… I think the vacation taught me how to cook again? Or maybe I am just enjoying cooking in my full sized kitchen again!

I mean, when camping there are certain amenities that one gives up or get forgotten. I try to make a list to be sure I am NOT forgetting something dreadfully important and knew that we weren’t leaving civilization entirely so I could purchase what was left behind. I tried…

Did you know that 2oz is equal to 1/4 Cup? Well… you quickly find that out when cooking in an RV with no measuring cups. I am glad I brought my nursing equipment! It’s sole purpose was to measure our ingredients for cooking. Whoops!

You can check out more fun from our travels by clicking here. But now onto the meals for the week in my awesome big kitchen! Hehe…

Now my meal ideas might change because my garden has blessed us with lots of produce and I need to use it all up.

Monday
One thing the garden has produced in abundance is Eight Ball Squash/Zucchini so I need to find some yummie recipes! How about some: Eight Ball Zucchini Parmesan

Tuesday
Fajita’s! I already precooked and seasoned the meat when I made Chicken Enchilada’s last week.

Wednesday
Ravioli or Lasagna… have not decided yet.

Thursday
Leftovers

Friday
Breakfast! Hubbie got "pancaked out” while on vacation so last week we had biscuits and gravy. I hope I can work in pancakes again this week. I really love ‘em! :)

Saturday
Orange Chicken (maybe) or salad
Not sure just yet.

Sunday
Shepherd’s Pie or leftovers

Check out MORE great Meal Plan ideas at: I'm an Organizing Junkie - orgjunkie.com.

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Black Hills Mt Rushmore

Our last stop on our trip was only supposed to last a few days. We were going to stop, check out Mt Rushmore, attend a lighting ceremony and be on our way. Well, as previously posted my Dad’s emergency surgery had us staying in the area a lot longer than expected so we had more time to poke around.(BTW: My Dad is out of the Hospital, but still recovering.)

First off, I found the Mt Rushmore area to be heavily commercialized. I wasn’t really thrilled with all that either. I did however enjoy Hill City, SD more than Keystone, SD. Our KOA campground was wonderful as well with a LOT of kid friendly activities and play areas. With that said….

We went to visit Custer State Park. There is supposedly a herd of some 1,500 Bison running around free on this park. I say supposedly because I mostly saw a lot of overly friendly donkeys. (I love mini donks!!!)
We only saw 5 of that Bison herd. I was feeling pretty let down and made the comment, “that only leaves 1,495 left of the herd to find!” When we rounded a corner and WHOA! There was a pile up of cars that we were going to pass because we couldn’t figure out WHAT they had stopped about. Yah… look to your right out the window and when you can see the GLINT of sun light in their eyes, you’re too close.
2,000 pounds of unpredictable, untamed wild. And guess what! People were getting OUT of their vehicles within 10 foot of this animal to take pictures. Our vehicle was too close for my comfort and I took pictures from inside. Crazy people… don’t they know this huge beastie can do a 180 in seconds, coon jump 6 feet in the air and run faster than a moped?! Amazing animals!

The highlight of the trip was to see Mt Rushmore. Due to running up and down the mountain to visit my Dad, we did not get to see a lighting ceremony. We did however meet, have a quick pix taken and picked up the book of Nick Clifford, one of the original Mt Rushmore carvers! That was pretty spectacular. I also learned lots of interesting facts about Mt Rushmore from the very cool museum on site too. Such as, the monument is not complete! Roosevelt’s head is so far back due to bad rock being in the front. There is a Hall of Records only 25 ft behind the monument that holds ceramic plates of the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, etc. The carver’s got so good at their jobs they could blast within 4 inches of where they needed to with dynamite! And so much more…

We also took some quick passes past the Crazy Horse monument being worked on too, but never during a good time with lighting to take a picture.

Check out more of my fun RV trip by clicking here!

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Emergency Surgery

Two words that you do NOT want to hear while you are driving across country on a family vacation. We made it out to Yellowstone without any real issues but on the way home… wow…

Our first issue was the RV overheating. Once we got that under control my Father ended up with a medical issue that could not be ignored. It’s an abscess and it was closing off his airway. So with all of that going on we took him and my Mom to the ER in Rapid City, South Dakota and our vacation extended by four days.

My Dad was admitted to the Hospital and had to have surgery. Everything happened so fast it was a whirlwind. We had to rent a vehicle to go up and down the mountain from our campsite to the Hospital. My Mom spent the night down there each night. We considered moving camp, but the KOA had a ton of activities available for 4 restless kiddos to keep busy. We also had two little dogs to take care of as well. This was becoming a Camping FAIL situation. We all were frantically calling home to get things taken care of there since we would not be home soon enough to care for it ourselves. Our dog was shuttled to my in-laws, garden left to it’s own will, cats and bunny stocked up on food, mail is left untouched, appointments shifted out, kid events/tryouts called and cancelled, etc etc etc. I felt like a revolving door on the phone!

Not all of it was a FAIL though. The beautiful Mt Rushmore KOA gave us a discount on the remainder of our “over staying” there. They also lent us a minivan for FREE because we had to keep running down to Rapid City to visit and delivery items to my parents. The RV place we rented our camper from gave us a huge discount on the RV we were renting so that we did not need to leave my parents in order to get it back in time. WOW! God was watching out for us during this emergency. I’m thankful!

We are finally headed home and should actually be there in a few hours from the time I am writing this! I cannot wait to sleep in our own bed and take a nice warm shower without spiders watching me. HEHEHE I can honestly say that I am not interested in visiting Mt Rushmore again anytime soon though. I think we drove past it at LEAST 10 times in all the days we were there. The most that I remember about this part of the trip is the stress from dropping off my parents at a Hospital, the relief of the surgery being over and being ecstatic when we started heading home.

My Dad is not out of the woods yet though. His neck is back to swelling again and we are hoofing it as fast as we can home to get him to a doctor appointment on time here. I hope that they will be able to resolve the rest of his issues without another surgery, but he may have to have one.

There is more to come about our RV trip soon! I did not have time to write much during our overstay around Mt Rushmore like I had hoped. I’ve now learned that a smaller space does not equal more free time to play. It does equal more difficulty in keeping kids entertained though. :)

Read more about our sometimes uneventful trip.

Also be sure to visit "My Blessed Life" and link up your Friday Fails.

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Yellowstone Wonderland!

Whitewater rafting, horseback riding in the mountains, Old Faithful, Paint Pots, Tower Falls, hills that bikes refuse to go up.. oh wait, that was hills that my legs refused to get my bike up. Well, whatever. Our Yellowstone experience was FANTASTIC! Beyond fantastic! I am homesick for Yellowstone! I feel that I really didn’t get to experience the whole thing… but we got what we could and I am so thankful for that. I learned so much and would love to get an opportunity to revisit this “Wonderland” called Yellowstone. And ya know what, even though the biggest draw seems to be the Old Faithful I think I just want a chance to get to know everything around there. I’d love to stay at the Old Faithful Inn and watch Old Faithful at NIGHT! Wouldn’t that be a treat? Maybe visit Yellowstone in the winter and ride snow mobile tours through it. WOW! There’s so much you can do there maybe we should just move next door and visit every weekend. :) Have you ever been to Yellowstone? If not… you must go because

”paint cannot touch it and words are wasted”
- Frederick Remington
  Pony Tracks, 1895

Here is my attempt to remember:

There was so much to see, and so little time to see it all. We took in the “high points” but I really don’t think there was an area that wouldn’t be a highpoint! From Mammoth Springs (bottom left) to Fountain Geyser in the Lower Geyser Basin (lower right). There was gorgeous waterfalls and words-can-not-describe mountains on every turn.

We LOVED spotting roaming wildlife! It might have been more fun to watch the people fall over themselves or get in harms way to take a picture though. Sigh! This is why investing in a long lens is a good idea before you go. I did not get to see any bears or wolves, but my family had seen a few bears when they took a trip from Gardiner to Cody to witness an Indian Pow Wow. Due to vehicle space, the fact that I had an infant to feed and that I was already exhausted from the ride out I did not attend that event.

The star of the show seems to be Old Faithful. I would love to get a chance to stay at the Inn and witness Old Faithful off season or at night when the crowds are not around. None the less, it was spectacular and I can now say, “I saw it in person”. There are LOTS of beautiful and awe inspiring geysers in Yellowstone. I wish we had had more time to sit and wait for some of the others to give us a show. Many of them are not predictable.

Canyon Falls took my breath away! There’s an overlook that you can stand right next to it too, but we were not able to stop there. Could you imagine?! Even from this distance you could hear the falls.

The mountains have my heart too. I have more pictures of mountains from this trip than my children! We were so fortunate to be camping at the base of Electric peak (pictured above) and I woke up and went to sleep gazing at it everyday.
I will share more as I can, because I don’t think enough can be said about Yellowstone! It was the highlight of my trip and I will never forget it. You can check out more of our trip by clicking here.

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Great Wide Open

Traveling Wyoming was very… umm… interesting! Hehe… No really, I liked it a lot because I was moving across a place I’d never been before. It was a lot of wide open spaces with lots of cows. Some areas are flat but most of the ride was hills upon mountains! Lots of grazing pastures. My Hubbie dubbed Wyoming as Road-a-coaster area. If you ride in the back of the RV, you feel more like a tossed rag doll.

There was lots of sage brush, coal and oil rigs. At least, more than I expected to see.

We found out that these are snow fences? There were tons of them out in the middle of fields. Odd way for snow fences, but I guess whatever works. Most of the roads out there were dirt too. It’s like the highway is the only thing paved and the exits too. Once you get off though, they are mostly dirt.

One thing I did love though was my first view of the beautiful mountains! And this was only a taste of what was to come at Yellowstone. Wow!


Be sure to check out more of this great RV Trip that I blogged about too.


PS-Yes, everything has worked out just fine with our Lost Credit Card mishap. We have it back and it’s working fine without any crazy charges.

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Gorgeous Desolation

As we travelled through the Badlands I felt the need to grip my seat during head spinning curves with the edge of nothing only a few feet away. I’m so glad I was not driving because the driver really had to pay attention to the road and not gawk around. Ever. At all. Notta! My stomach needed a break after those cliff hanging edges for sure. It was beautiful though! The kids loved it.

We did get a moment to hop out (it was not easy finding a place to pull our huge rig over to enjoy the scenery) and check things out though. They have trails leading you right out into… well… dirt, rock, cactus and nothing.


See us? We all climbed up there! Hehehe… Was so nerve wracking and yet fun. It wasn’t even that high either! I think it was just the expansive vastness all around.


There were some very sturdy, beautiful flowers growing all around too.
OH and yah, HEED the warnings:


We were fortunate enough to NOT run into any of these guys.

All-in-All a FANTASTIC choice to drive through the Badlands for a visit. We all loved and would appreciate a repeat. I wish I could have taken more photos while NOT riding in a vehicle, but happy with what I did get. There was a lot of construction on the road through the State Park, but it helped us to slow down and soak everything up. This trip is just showing me more and more the wonder of God’s creation around us.


There will be MORE of our RV trip coming up soon.

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Traveling Through Iowa

We cleared an entire state! To me that just seems odd and I don’t feel that we’ve driven like that. I think it’s because of the RV, personally. See we don’t really need to stop of food right now because I packed quick meals to eat on the way. Our first day traveling I didn’t have enough food though and didn’t think about how the time change would effect our eating habits. We were STARVING! But we survived. I planned a little better the next day and made an effort to get the kids food between our time of normal eating and the new time zone we came too. It’s WEIRD! I am not good with time at all either, so this has been a challenge. Hehe..

At any rate, Iowa has been very interesting. I’ve never really been in Iowa much or even past it so now I am paying more attention to the landscape. There’s a few things I have noticed that I snagged a few pictures.


There are windmills everywhere! And not just a few (like I’ve seen in Ohio) there are tons of them in certain areas. TONS! This was just one of the areas that we went past and not the best picture in the world either. What can I say though, we were driving. So forgive the pictures in advance for me.
 
We even saw a windmill in pieces on a semi truck being driven to it’s new home, I’m sure. One propeller filled a semi bed by itself! It was really awesome to see the propeller like that and given the size of these things.. WOW! 


Another notable detail in the landscape that this flat-state girl has never seen before (that I remember) is step farms. Check that out! There’s corn growing on a hill in stair step style! Hehe…

Iowa was cool. Crossing over large rivers, not so cool in my book, but still very neat to see. I’ve seen it before, but I’m still in awe of the size of the Mississippi.

Feel free to check out some of our Trip Fails so far. I just recently found out that I forgot my Nikon camera charger at home but Hubbie did much worse... SIGH!

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Lost Credit Card = Lost Lunch!

I have TWO Friday Fails to fill you in on here, but one will have to wait for the more important one. We lost our credit card. The BIG one! The one we had intended to use for the gas on our trip first and get paid off (quickly) at home. What a MESS! I felt my stomach hit the floor when Hubbie informed me of this terrible news.

First off a tip: When traveling out of state, or anywhere for that matter, be sure to call the credit card company (if you intend to use one) and inform them of your traveling plans. See, if you don’t they will deny you usage of your card at the MOST inopportune time and you will have to call in to clear the account with lots of crazy security questions while your curious family sits in the boat of an RV wondering what happened to you. ERGH!

Second tip: Never ever, EVER leave your credit card at the gas station after said previous issue occurred and you were finally able to pay for the gas to leave. Always do a complete check around your vehicle and wallet before driving a half-a-day away to your next location and in the process leaving your credit card at the gas station. ERGH!

Finally: Suggest to the gas station that they mail your lost credit card on to your final destination (after covering the current gas station payment with cash when you find out your don’t have the credit card in hand) and call your credit card company letting them know of the oops and that you will call again to check on transactions once you get the credit card in hand.

I am pretty sure I lost my lunch in this whole ordeal.

The other fail? Are you really curious about hearing this one? Okay, this one wasn’t our fail really. See while driving down the road, minding our own business someone driving towards us in a construction zone THREW something out their window at us! Fortunately it did not hit us, but the car behind us may not have been so fortunate. So driver failure to them! Grrrr…

Be sure to visit "My Blessed Life" and link up your Friday Fails.

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Follow Me - Our New “Home”

We are on a journey and let me tell you, it’s been a rough start. I’m LOVING it now. We are headed to Yellowstone and I am so excited to be on this HUGE family vacation. For the next few weeks I will be blogging about our trip as we go along. First off, let me introduce you to Sulley, our RV and new home for awhile. (What? You don’t name your vehicles? Well… too bad, we do! Hehe)



He’s BIG! Seats 8+ and sleeps 6. It has a really nice kitchen, tons of storage space, bathroom and shower! Having a bathroom is a HUGE bonus with 4 kiddos along for the ride. It’s a quirky RV with drawers that come open while driving, windows that get stuck open or closed and the doorway stairs try to eat people a lot. It’s still a ton of fun though and I know we will laugh about it all… now! Hehe…

I have learned some new tricks in this RV too. Did you know that a plastic knife can cut an apple into acceptable chunks for kiddos to munch? And that this can be done during construction traffic stops? Hehe… (You are not, technically, required to stay sitting at all times in a moving bus. Trust me, we do not try to get much moving around done while driving though. EEP!) Also, peeing on a tiny toilet during high “turbulence” takes a certain finesse that I am not sure I even have. 

Oh and my Father has some really awesome luggage for packing. Don’t you think? SIGH! Gotta love that too.

Stay tuned for more RV fun and follow me along on our trip! I will be tweeting along the way quite a bit too. 

Be sure to see what others might be in love with this week on The Diaper Diaries and "The Things I Love" carnival.

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Sicker then a Dog

Mood: Did you READ the title?

Weather: i don't care

Our vacation was okay. We are all now sick sick sick.

I've decided that I do not like our "vacations". They are more like "lets go out of town to be miserable and get sick" times.

Our first ever camping trip the kiddos had the flu and it was SOOOO hot it was unbearable.

This vacation we stayed in a hotel but somehow we each got sick with the same yuckie miserable cold. NOT happy "campers" at all, once again.

Glad to be back in a place where there's jello.

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