Portland Zoo

Wow... what a week.... well it didn't start out very good, but it's going to shape up better (lets hope)

Well Monday i had to go see the doctor... and left after being informed I have the cholesterol of a 80 year old and that I get to eat about 15 g of sat fat a day... so yeah for me... 

Tuesday.... the plan was the leave the house around 8 or 9... 

 These are pictures from our first stop in Ritzville on our way to my parents cabin for a few days... 

shortly after we left Ritzville our van started acting up whenever Dave would accelerate... at first we were thinking it's a fluke... than as it continued to happen time and time again we realized that the trip we have been waiting for and getting the girls excited about to go to Portland Zoo was not going to happen... we took the next exit and headed back home... praying we would make it. As we are deciding that we can't go and that we will have to post pone for when we could get the van fixed, i let my mom know. Her and my dad were looking forward to us visiting them, solutions were brought up on how to make the situation happen and it was a no go, we had set aside money for the trip not to fix our van so this was a hard fact of life, eventually as we puttered on home Sami realized (being the smart girl she is) that we were not going to Grandpa's Mtn. And the tears begun... "I wanna go to grandpa's Mtn, I wanna see the elephants, i want to play princesses," as I heard this I started to tear up it's sad when crap like this happens, the girls don't understand and it's not as if we can control it... it's so hard...  and honestly it kinda happens a lot... I HATE CARS!!! As we turned into the street to our house Dave lost complete power and had to use all his muscle to aim our van into our driveway and not hit our house... we laughed what else could we do. We went inside and my dad called... he and my mom  had come up with many solutions and after a lot of thinking the solution that stuck was to rent a van and continue on our trip. 

 We checked out Enterprise and the cost and found a Town Chrysler Plymouth in Spokane for about $70 a day, 3 days... ok we can do this. We reserved it and than piled into the Suzuki to go pick it up. We got to the dealer loaded the kids into the van and drove home. We transferred all our stuff into the luxury van and started the journey again.... 

 I would never purchase this vehicle since of the make and model but man it was cushy and made the trip a dream.... See the girls all set to go in the back seat... watching a movie... on the flip down screen... 

 Dave enjoying the luxury... 

 And me in aww at the wonder of this vehicle... that screen when your stopped shows the movie, and flips down to put the movie in... and as you can see has a Aux outlet and a drive to plug in our phones... it was hot shot... and every seat had at least 2 cup holders... 

Since we had already driven 2 hours the kids got a bit restless and so a drive that would have taken us 4 hours took us around 5 maybe a bit more... we got to the mtn cabin around 6:30-7. And yes... the vacation could begin... we unloaded and had some fun... the girls right away started to play on grandpa's swing set... We had some yummy frito banditos.... wow need to have that more often! 

 The girls fell asleep around 9 and the adults watched "Bourne Ultimatum"

The next morning we got up my mom made some delicious french toast and bacon and we got ready and left there mtn around 9 or so. We all piled into the 7 seater van and headed to Portland. Dave listened well and we didn't take any wrong turns and got there around lunch time. It's about 2 1/2 - 3 hrs away from the mtn, and with a couple stops there ya go. As we entered the park we all used the restroom and than decided it was lunch time... Well I decided and everyone followed me... eating only 15 g of goodness a day is hard... all the yummy stuff is high in Saturated Fat... 

 We saw a lot of animals and even missed a section but it was mostly snakes so I didn't care... this was maybe one of two lions I don't know because shortly after it was here it walked into it's den and there were like 50 people in there along with a trainer who was making them do a bunch of cool stuff. I saw this lion stand on it's hind legs with it's front paws on a chain link fence... it would have been cool if there weren't 50 people crowded around watching... mostly adults. 

 This was a confusing zoo not a lot of signage and it had various different looking spots... 

Here's a Hippo.... 

 This Zebra didn't move for the entire time we were looking at it... 

 Pigmy goat petting zoo... girls loved this the best... and since we can go do this anywhere in Cheney... why did we even bother with the zoo... ha ha ha. ..

 Giraffee's... 

 sleeping porcupine's... I have never seen these at a zoo... 

 a dragon... 

This awesome polar bear.... it was jumping up and down on that bucket... it was pretty cool... 

 Sami cooperating for a fun picture.... 

 Daphne finding somewhere fun to climb... 

 Bald eagles in there nests... 

 Ezra being good... 

 These crazy bears... this bear started climbing this tree and it was crazy I was getting concerned for the bear when it got to the very thin part of the top of the tree than climbed out on a tiny branch... i had to walk away at that point. 

 This was my favorite part... 

 I took these with my phone so bad coloring but you can kind of see Daphne standing in the corner... there was just a thick piece of glass separating them it was awesome! If it hadn't been so dark I think Sami would have liked it... she wouldn't go in any of the dark cave like area's. 

 It was a great time... my parents were with us... but I guess after juggling Ezra and keeping the girls from climbing on fences were an animal was on the other side I didn't catch my parents in any photos... I feel bad... they were great... it wouldn't have been good week with out this family trip... my parents are awesome and they even spoiled the girls with stuffed elephants... as you notice I didn't get any pictures of the elephants... all we saw was the butt of one hidden in a corner of his cage... gee thanks Portland Zoo... the one thing my kids were excited about... oh well they loved it... and slept good that night... 

We had to have the van back by 3 and so we left my parents house around 9 the next morning after yummy pancakes (man we ate good). We timed it just right and took minimal stops and got home at 1 and got to Enterprise just before 3 with a full tank of gas... Glad we were able to do this for the girls... I am going to blow up some of the various pictures and put them on the wall in there bathroom which is animal themed to remind them of how much fun we had!