Safari

This last week we tagged along with Mark on his business trip to Medford. We like to do that when it is in driving distance...the hotel is already paid for so why not join in and swim to our hearts content. Anyway we drove down last Sunday and stayed at a new and very nice Homewood Suites. We were awaken early Monday morning to the fire alarm. Kenny has NEVER liked loud noises and has always responded to them in funny ways...this time was no exception. I witnessed him jumping up fast and heading strait for the bedroom door. Unfortunately his body was not ready to respond in that way and he ended up running into the wall which knocked him back into my bed and then onto the suitcase by the wall. I got him calmed down and then woke up Lauren (who was sleeping through the alarm) and headed out of the building (Carley was up and calmly waiting for us to lead her out). There was no smoke so we didn't get to practice our crawling but we did do everything else like touching door knobs to make sure they weren't hot and then headed for the stairs. It was cold enough that we got into our car and took a short drive. It turned out that some bacon got burned which set off the alarm and apparently no one had the key to turn off the alarm so it took awhile to be let back in. So no fire, but we got some good practice in. No one could go back to sleep so we were all a little grouchy that day. We got some good swimming in before we noticed Lauren was not feeling well. It turned out that she had a fever so we took it easy the rest of the day. Mark was able to take Carley and Kenny swimming again so the night wasn't a total loss. The next day we found a park with a splash pad of sorts so Carley and Kenny could have more fun. Lauren stayed close to me. That afternoon we drove to the next pit stop which was Eugene, Oregon. On our way we went to a Safari where we could drive our car around and look at quite a few animals. It was a lot of fun. We were warned to make sure there was at least 3 car lengths between ourselves and the rhinos. Luckily they kept their distance. We really enjoyed this place and getting up close and personal with a few of the animals. The more dangerous ones where behind fences. Lauren was doing much better by the time we got to Eugene that we all got to enjoy more swimming, we had the pool to ourselves too. Good times, good times...

Carley was very proud of this new friend she found. I love how quickly kids make friends.

Lauren so badly wanted to join but just didn't feel good.

Finally got a smile!

Carley was complaining that she was cold and since we were in between hotels, I had no towels. I told her to lay down on the sidewalk and this is what she did...

Check out those horns and the cute calf. There were a lot of baby animals.

These beast stunk!

The emus had no fear.

We saw so much more! The best part was getting to see them all without having to walk around a whole park. They did have a small area to walk through to see some of the smaller animals closer. Our favorite was the monkeys...so cute!