Monday, April 12, 2010

The Natural Bridge

For Anna Elise's spring break we decided to go on a family trip. On Wednesday we drove to Lexington, VA. It's ok if you've never heard of it, I hadn't either. It's in the middle of nowhere in western Virginia. It's absolutely beautiful there! We got a hotel with an indoor pool and the kids where in heaven! On Thursday we went to the Natural Bridge and saw the bridge, a replica of a Monican Indian village, and hiked to a waterfall.

On Friday we went to the Virginia Animal Safari. It was so cool! Mike, Lilah and I loved it! It's 180 acres of animals roaming free. You drive through it and hold buckets of feed out your car window and the animals will eat and you can pet them. It's a great concept. We were the first car there that day and the animals were waiting for us! It went really well for the first 30 seconds. The kids were holding their bucket of feed out the car window and the Llamas were eating. Llamas began to swarm the car and the kids got a little worried and decided to pull their bucket in. The llamas put their heads into the car to follow the buckets and the kids just lost it. We had three screaming, yelling, crying kids huddled in the middle of the car wanting to go home. We had to roll their windows up. I fed the animals with Lilah for the rest of the trip. We fed llamas, ostriches, emus, camels, deer, antelope, other antelope types of animals, and dromedary. We saw but did not feed bison, bit horned cows, zebras, and pigs. After lunch we came back and the kids enjoyed the 'regular' walk through zoo with the tigers, kangaroos, birds, monkeys, giraffes, ect behind bars. I highly recommend it! We drove home Friday afternoon.

If asked, the kids' favorite part of the trip was swimming in the pool. If you asked Mike his least favorite part of the trip he would say sleeping in a hotel with kids. But we had a good time! Unfortunately we didn't bring either of our cameras with us - I was mad at myself the whole trip! We did get a few pictures and video with Mike's phone. It just doesn't do it justice, but you get the idea...


waterfall on the way to the Natural Bridge - it was so beautiful!




The Natural Bridge - it was so green and cool, it's not a good picture. It was breath taking.


The waterfall we hiked to.


Our safari kids recovering in the gift shop after their traumatic morning


Mom and Lilah feeding a llama while Anna Elise 'freaks out' in the background


Mom and Lilah feeding the camel. You have to listen to the kids' conversation in the background. This camel was huge with two tall humps. He was very sweet and eventually rested his chin on my window ledge and let us pet him while he 'purred'. He had cool dread locks too!

8 comments:

Sunshine said...

oh fun. I've been in that area several times. WE'll have to take the kids there sometime.

Betsy said...

The videos were so funny. I love hearing Anne Elise in the background.
Oh, too funny.

Jessica said...

Sounds fun! That is where our stake center is, but of course we are there on Sunday, so we haven't been able to do anything yet. I'd still like to go though. Did you make it to Foam hedge:)

Eyvon said...

I have to leave a comment. The videos were too funny! The kids were so true to their own personalities. Dad and I loved it.

Unknown said...

I love how you take your kids everywhere, what great memories!!
Feeding the animals was pretty darn funny!

Jessica said...

I love the video..."Who wants to come pet him?" "NOBODY!!!" That is so funny! I was laughing imagining what my kids would've done if llamas stuck their heads in our car. I think Eden would be crying for days.

Trina said...

Sounds like a fun trip and I loved the videos. At least Lilah had fun feeding the animals. What a cool place to go.

Unknown said...

I'm so sad your kids got psyched out in the first 30 seconds. Our kids just sat there w/ the bucket between their legs laughing their heads off. Still one of my favorite trips ever!