Fun Friday!

I just had to post this of B, the cutest little tree-hugger in the East. :)

What did we do with two extra days off school? Well, Thursday we bummed around the house and went to a friends' for a bit but Friday we went out and had us some fun all day long (even big J beat us home!). We loaded up, picnic and all, and went to a place called Insectropolis which is kinda like a zoo for creepy crawlies.

We had so much fun learning more about insects, arachnids and other creepy crawlies! How do I know the place is good? B remembered much of what we saw, touched, and experienced and learned some new things and so did I.

I could not believe the kids all touched everything they presented--a live Madagascar hissing cockroach, African Giant Millipede, Scorpion, and a tarantula. I almost passed on the tarantula but figured I may as well as who knows if I'd ever get the chance again.

We all had good time there and then headed over to the beach. Yes, the Jersey Shore in November is still open and quite uncrowded. In fact, we got front row (and Free) parking! Besides, how could I be 10 minutes from the beach on a sunny day and not go. It was a fantastic fall day--mid-50s and sunny, and miraculously little wind. The kids played in the sand for a while before heading down to the water to play their favorite game of trying to dodge the waves. We picked up a number of large shells and as the tide was going out the kids even crossed a small 'stream' out onto a sand bar and little J had a blast making the sea gulls fly as he ran toward them on it. The only thing we were missing was big J who had to work. :( But he sure enjoyed hearing the kids tell him all about their fun day! (Unfortunately, I didn't get any pics at the beach cuz I was holding a snug, sleeping little Bug):

Trekkin'

The beginning of our trek East was through no-man's land as we drove up to Casper, WY and saw close to one million Pronghorn along the way. Jealous? Thought so. Cuz, that's about all we saw while driving. Along the way we stopped to see Devil's Gate, WY which was pretty neat and they had a good little church station there and Independence Rock was right next door. That was a long day and luckily there was a little swim time after setting up camp. Then we were on further into the middle of nowhere to see Devil's Tower and we did a short hike around it, which was just over a mile I believe. It was way cool to see the 'potato mountain' that I learned about on "Close Encounters of the Third Kind". We learned about the main Indian legend regarding the unique rock formation and the science hypotheses behind it. Pretty sweet stuff. Another cool thing about Devil's Tower was that the campsite was super close to a large field which was Full of Prairie Dogs. I'd just been reading a book to the kids a few months back about Lewis and Clark and their discovery of Prairie Dogs so it was cool to see them in action. They are SO cute! There were also several deer to be seen when we went on a stroll there after dinner. We also saw the biggest, fattest, juiciest caterpillar in the world and were glad to catch sight of it before one of our shoes did. Seriously, I'll never forget how big it was. And it was beautifully colored. Awesome.

Well, then we were getting deeper into nowhere and saw Mt. Rushmore, which was way cool and they have an amazing museum there to learn about the idea and making of the faces. If you go I recommend the informational movie they have. I never knew the main guy in charge of the sculpture was a member of the LDS church, Gutzon Borglum. Way cool. Then we happened upon the 2nd longest cave in the world, Jewel Cave, SD. We went on a 1 1/2 hour cave tour and saw the longest piece of bacon ever. Like 26 feet long or something. Incredible! The picture above of little J squeezing through the concrete block is what you have to be able to get through to go on one of the more serious spelunking expeditions.

Well, as if we couldn't get further out of touch with civilization we went through Badlands. Man, they were BAD. Nothing but cute little prairie dogs, big horn sheep, Buffalo and fossils. We were lucky and caught a large majority of a ranger lesson about different fossils found in the area. We were glad not to become such, as we had plenty of water and didn't stick around terribly long. The large bison in the above picture was actually scratching his tummy on those wooden posts. So funny. Oh, and we were setting up camp in the dark there and got freaked out seeing a HUGE spider. I so do not like setting up camp in the dark. The rest of our journey, other than Ohio (below), is unfilmed cuz it was mostly driving and hanging out with friends in Iowa. We were happy both cars, all 5 of us and our stuff all made it safe and sound. Housing when we got here was a miracle and friends were most helpful. Yay for wonderful adventures!!