Fossil Rim!

A few weeks ago, Brian took a Thursday morning off so we could take the kids to Fossil Rim. They love animals and I really wanted to do something fun with them before my knee surgery. We woke up that morning to thunderstorms, but a check of the weather revealed a break in the rain from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. We figured this was a perfect amount of time to cruise through Fossil Rim and that a little rain wouldn't hurt us on the way there or the way back...heck, it would even be less crowded due to the inclement weather! A perfect plan...we are so smart!

When we were about halfway there, the hail started. It was absolutely pouring and the sound of the hail hitting the car was so loud (although my car had no damage so it couldn't have been that big). Fortunately the kids did not freak out and all Brian and I could really do was look at each other and laugh at our brilliant plan.

We finally arrived at Fossil Rim and I ran out of the car in the pouring rain to pay for our admission. The nice girl behind the counter informed me that the rain should stop soon and that the rhinos were in their pen and the giraffes, too, as they are "walking lightning rods". She did say that our admission fee was good for all day, so we figured we would go ahead and cruise through once and go back again if need be.

Before we left, we figured we knew exactly how things would go: Jensen would scream with delight at the animals and Charlotte would flip out and have a meltdown or two. And the minute we reached the first animal (some kind of deer or something, I didn't really consult my handy guidebook) our children proved once again that we really, really don't have them figured out: Jensen began shaking his head saying, "No, no no!" and retreating in fear to the opposite side of the car from the animals while Charlotte squealed with delight and reached out to feed them.

Charlie was cracking us up: Even though we unstrapped them from their car seats and let them have free reign of the car, she preferred to stay in her car seat where she belongs. Too funny...maybe a security thing or something? At any rate, she stayed in her car seat pretty much the whole time even though we kept encouraging her to come up front with us.

Hello!

 

 

 We stopped at the cafe at the midway point to have lunch (ignoring the fact that it was 10:30 a.m.)...

...and then we were back on the trail. The rain had stopped and as soon as we began driving we could see them: the giraffes were out!

There was even a baby giraffe (you can see him in the above pic). They were so beautiful and sweet, and one sure did come right up and stick his head pretty much in our sunroof. Jensen would have none of it, but my little daredevil Charlotte let me lift her out of the sunroof to feed our new friend.

I was giddy with excitement over the giraffes; in fact, I think I might have enjoyed it more than the kids! They were definitely the highlight of the trip...definitely better than the snobby zebras who totally thought they were too cool for our food pellets.

Jensen's second favorite part of the trip was probably this:

Just like Britney Spears, y'all!

But his favorite part of the trip came after we had seen all there was to see (or so we thought). In the parking lot on the way out of Fossil Rim, we came across the best exhibit of all (to my school bus-fanatic little boy, at least)...

My big boy is still little!

He was so excited that he was just standing there jumping up and down.

So in the end, our brilliant rainy-day Fossil Rim plan wasn't exactly brilliant, but it turned out okay. We got to see most of the animals and even threw in a school bus for good measure. I'm still finding stray food pellets in my car (the kiddos' aim was not so hot), but hey, it's better than hail damage. I had so much fun that day with my little family of four. We will definitely be returning to Fossil Rim soon...hopefully on a slightly sunnier day!