What an exciting, busy day we had in Oklahoma City! Mandy woke us all up about 7:20 by throwing a huge fit for chocolate milk! Since we were all up we dressed and headed down to breakfast. Afterwards, we dropped Scott off at his golf tournament and headed for the zoo.

This is by far the best zoo experience I have ever had! The kids and I had the BEST time. First off, we saw more animals there than at every other zoo we've ever been to combined. And, they were so CLOSE. The habitats were amazing. It's also a botanical garden so it was beautiful.

Just look how close those elephants are!
They had those great old machines that make wax animals while you wait. This was the big fascination of the day. They all had to have one and then wanted to buy one for Dad.

Each species had it's own section of the zoo. At the entrances they had these great statues for the kids to play on and pose for pictures.

We say tons of great animals. I had to include the bald eagle we saw. He was so gorgeous and regal!











Of course we had ice cream and snow cones!

After the zoo we picked up Scott and headed over to see our cousins Scott, Patty, Colton, Parker and Hudson. We had such fun with them, as always! The kids have a great time playing and the adults have just as much fun visiting! After dinner they took us to this great place near Arcadia Lake called "Pops." It's this awesome place that all about soda pop! It's all in glass bottles and they have every flavor you could think of. They had an entire refrigerator case of different black cherry sodas, Scott's favorite! I had a pear soda, yes pear! Thomas had sasparilla, but the girls were not as adventurous as the rest of us...they had Sprite!

Out back they have tables and chairs and a huge lawn. The kids drank their sodas and ran around like crazy. Perfect for running off all that sugar and caffeine!

Even Hudson enjoyed sampling the different sodas!

What a cutie!

Isn't it wonderful to have family that you are also great friends with?! I have lots of cousins being that my mom is one of SIX. When we were kids we were forced to be together and play nice because... our parents made us. As adults we have found that we really enjoy each others company and are committed to giving our kids the blessing of knowing their cousins. For me, as an only child, I really value these relationships with my cousins.

We have had a really fun, exciting, exhausting day...

Blessings,

Leslie