VA Zoo

We headed to the Virginia Zoo in Norfolk to meet our friends and take advantage of my Houston Zoo membership.  The membership we have is pretty awesome, I got all of my friends in for free!  Thanks Poppy & Trix!

Here’s Calvin with Evie & James.

He loves blowing bubbles, he gets them pretty big too!

And after they pop his face is nice and slobbery :)

Here’s everyone checking out the bears…Calvin was over there too, but he decided it was more fun to run off.

This was the only way he stayed happy.

But of course he wanted to go the wrong way and wasn’t too happy when I made him turn around….boy was that the biggest tantrum I’ve ever seen.  You would think I was being a selfish mother for torturing my child by taking him to the zoo….sheesh!

Here are the little guys (& girls!)

Calvin must be trying to tell me something….doesn’t like elephants! Ahh!

And here’s the whole group.  We had a good turn out and a lot of fun!

Calvin’s First Movie Theater Experience

That’s right, we decided to take Calvin to the movies.  If he wants to be part of this family, he has to have a love for movies.  As you may have picked up from past posts, Calvin is a little obsessed with the movie Cars.  And Cars 2 just happens to be in theaters now, so we took the little man to see it.

Calvin did pretty well. He sat through the 15 minutes of previews and about 2/3rds of the movie. By that point he was getting antsy, so we let him walk up and down the stairs. We went to the 10 AM showing on a Tuesday so there weren’t many people seeing the show with us.

Luke said I could get arrested for taking this pic :)

This is what he did as soon as the credits came on….back and forth in front of the screen :)

Here’s how he enjoyed his new favorite movie!

He didn’t really like sharing his coke with me though :)

I like how he’s pointing at Lightning McQueen here.

And the word “Cars” here…is he a genius baby or something?

He also had to wear his favorite “Cars” t-shirt which is actually part of a pj set :)

Starbucks Bottled Mocha Frappuccino Recipe

I love these drinks! I want to have one everyday, but at $1 a drink it could get really expensive. So I googled a recipe for the Mocha Frappes and came across this one:

Fills 6 9-oz Starbucks Frappuccino bottles

Ingredients
3 ½ cups espresso coffee*
1/3 cup sweetened condensed milk
4 cups milk (whole milk is best)
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon baking cocoa

Directions
Make espresso coffee. Mix coffee, still hot, sweetened condensed milk, cocoa, and sugar in your mixer until sugar is dissolved. Add milk and continue mixing, about one minute. Pour mix into individual 9.5-oz Starbucks Frappuccino bottles. Store in fridge until ready to use (Note: Do not store any longer than you would milk).

*May use regular coffee that has been run through the coffee maker twice, or add 4 teaspoons instant coffee granules to regular coffee.

I made it last night so I could enjoy a frappe this morning and it tastes exactly like the Starbucks drinks! I also didn’t have any espresso coffee, so I just ran regular coffee thru the maker twice.

I might have to buy the SB bottled drinks another time just so I can have bottles to refill :)

Alaska Day 7

Exploring Anchorage
7:30 – Eat breakfast at the Denali Cabins
8 – Drive to Anchorage
12 – Eat at Krazy Moose Subs
1 – Visit the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race Headquarters
2 – Spend the afternoon exploring downtown Anchorage
7 – Head to the airport
8:40 – Fly back to Houston

This was our last day in Alaska.  We started by driving back to Anchorage, but before we got there, we stopped in Wasilla to eat at Krazy Moose Subs and explore the Iditarod Museum.

Think you have bad gas prices?  Here’s what they charge right outside the park.

There was a volunteer’s picnic at the Iditarod “museum”, which was basically a wall with paintings of the winners and newspaper clips from some of the races.  Oh well, now we can say we’ve been there :)

We decided to check the status of our flight and noticed that it was delayed 3 hours!  Ahh, what do to with the time.  We’d been wanting to see Pirates of the Caribbean 4, so it seemed like a perfect way to spend our extra time. 

After the movie, we went to explore downtown Anchorage.  The whole trip I wanted to see salmon jump up river and a bear catch it in the air.  So we went to a salmon viewing spot and no such luck.   We didn’t even see any fish at all…bummer.

We did see Sarah Palin though!

And we were recommended by both our Nathan friends to eat the whiskey bbq ribs and house root beer at The Brewhouse, so we did and they were delicious.  We had to get it to-go b/c the wait time was 2 hours!

Then we headed to the airport and waited until 11:45 before boarding…it was a long day.  I opened Surprise 7 on the plane.  It was a list of all the funny things that happened in planning a surprise trip across the country.  Including Luke opening a no-interest credit card so I wouldn’t see all his charges!

It was such a fun trip and I have the best husband for planning it!  I love you Luke.

Alaska Day 6

Denali
5 – Breakfast at the Denali Cabins
6 – Embark on the Denali Backcountry Adventure
12 – Enjoy a buffet in Denali National Park
8 – Dine at the Black Diamond Grill

This was an EARLY day.  We had to wake up in the 5s b/c our bus was coming at 6 AM to pick us up for our adventure.  When we boarded the bus and saw that it was mostly older people, I knew it wasn’t going to be too “adventurous”.  They gave us a packing list of rain gear, hiking boots, jackets, bottles of water, bug spray, thermal (NO COTTON) long underwear and more.  We didn’t need any of this b/c we were on the bus for the whole time except for a few bathroom stops.  They even had water and snacks for us.  Anyway, despite the exaggerated name and packing list we had a fun time getting to see the park up close and personal.  Especially when we saw 4 of the top 5 animals.  We saw grizzly bears, moose, caribou, dall sheep, but no wolves.  But after seeing the movie Frozen, I’m glad we didn’t see any wolves :)

Notice the caribou running merrily along…

And then noticing the bear…

And then running merrily away…

Panoramic picture, click to see bigger:

After the long 6.5 hour bus ride, we made it to the interior of Denali National Park and ate lunch.  While everyone was eating a guy from the local airport came to ask if anyone wanted to fly back instead of taking the 6 hour bus ride.  Of course Luke jumped all over that opportunity!  So we took off in the little Cessna plane to view Mt. McKinley up close and personal. 

Mt. McKinley is the tallest point in North America standing at 20,320 feet.  Although there are plenty of taller peaks out there, it is the tallest vertical rise from base to summit in the world.  It was pretty amazing seeing it so close from the plane.  At one point I thought we were going to crash right into it, but the pilot said we were still miles away, it was just that big!

Another panoramic:

Here’s the route we took:

 

 

 

 

We made it back to the park’s visitor center around 4:30.  We had time to grab some dinner, get back to our cabin and watch 2 episodes of Law & Order before our bus got back at 8 PM.  That would’ve been a super long 14 hour day if we rode the bus back.  Good choice Luke!  That night I opened Surprise 6 which was kazoos from our wedding reception :)