travels... and then some!

here's my long over-due post... finally. you'd think i was busy or something, eh?

so as y'all already know, a few weeks ago we packed up and headed to tulsa. the kids were wonderful travelers, especially remington. the van was loaded to the max so there wasn't much room to stretch out. good thing all our kids still have short lil legs!!

see? jam-packed. we had to take something out every time we stopped, or else cole and madi couldn't get out. that's why cole's face is so funny... he was worried be was going to be stuck.

madi wasn't too happy about the whole thing right away, but she eventually got over it. :)

and remington?? well, he was just his usually sun-shiney self, of course!

(excuse the logo... which i will be working on changing in the coming week, by the way) we ran into some pretty lovely skies shortly after crossing into oklahoma.

huge thanks to my mom for getting the kids this floor puzzle- it's been a real help in occupying them! it even gives remington a safe, clean place to stretch out.
we weren't able to get out TOO much to explore the first week or two, so by thanksgiving, the kids were feeling the effects of being a strange place with different limitations. we spent thanksgiving day together as a family, something we didn't get to do last year. we dreamed of dinners like we've had in the past while eating pizza and finding joy in the fact that when we're back home between christmas and new year's, we'll have a late thanksgiving dinner with everyone to make up for it. we sure missed being home- nothing makes you appreciate family more than when you're far away from them; you tend to remember just what makes them so special!

kelvin's job got rained out on saturday (which meant they had to work sunday to make up for it), and he decieded we should do something fun with the kids. obviously, nothing that required being outside because of the weather, so we took a 15-minute drive over to jenks to see...

...the aquarium!!

"there are SHARKS in here?"

none of us have ever been to an aquarium, so it was a new experience for all of us. i think it's safe to say that we were just as excited as the kids!

anemones! advance warning: lots of photos. if you think that's a lot, you should see the ones i left out. yikes!!

your daily recommended dose of irony: leaks in an aquarium.

we saw some horseshoe crabs...

... and rem made a "fishy face". kind of.

then there were theses little guys... they're pretty photogenic, i think. no wonder you see these
creatures in "national geographic" more than once.

remington meets the big turtle. (if you look really closely you can see his britches about to fall off. they fell a second or two after i took this. poor baby- can't keep them on to save his life!)

there was an open area with a large habitat for these little turtles. the tiny one reminds me of rem- he used to stick his legs straight out like that. he's better about it now, especially since he's starting to experiment with creeping.

these kiddos spent the next 45 minutes obsessed with turtles... even when we were over by the sharks, i still heard a small voice mention turtles.

the walk-through tunnels weren't as big or expansive as i thought they'd be, but it was still really cool.

remi thought it was pretty neat too.

i may make this the new background on my laptop...

somebody's wide awake. or has had a little too much caffeine. or something.

i'm thinking we should get a big tank for the house- seems to have a calming effect on this kid.

total awe.

meet dory (from "finding nemo")!

totally not a fish or other variety of underwater creature, but they had a room with this guy, a raccoon and some otter in it. we didn't see the otter, but we saw the beaver (who apparently loves grapes)...

... and the raccoon.

after an hour, our tired little peanut was starting to zone out. yes, he's licking his daddy's jacket. and no, i don't know why. it was cute though- slowly, half-heartedly, just barely licking it over and over. self-soothing, maybe?

we saw a family of seahorses... i wish it had turned out better, but the way the tank was curved, it just distorted it no matter what. oh well. that baby seahorse on the right was pretty little though- cute!

octopus, anyone? it wasn't alive, fyi. (ew.)

cole's interpretation of an octopus, hahaha!

then we saw the jellyfish! it's obvious we've been staying in a hotel with access to cartoons, because cole and madi got all excited, wondering if they could have jelly now. (that would be a result of watching "spongebob squarepants", where jelly comes from the jellyfish that live in jellyfish fields. sigh.)

black light, anyone?

and then there was THIS one. pretty and icky all at the same time, huh?

hahahaha!

each of the kids got a small plush from the gift shop... we thought remington might like a turtle...

...madison picked out a pretty seahorse...

... and cole left with a stingray. we did get to see some real ones- if you've never seen one swim, it's pretty cool. i could watch those all day!

keeping our water-themed day going till bedtime, we stuck remington in the bath. rather, in the sink. he wasn't too happy about it.

yeah, definitely peeved. but he's so cute when he's in the water, all nekked and screaming.

that'll have to be all for now- we get free high-speed internet here at the hotel... but it's more "internet" than "high-speed". this post has literally taken me a collective three and a half hours to do. that's how slow it is. but it's better than nothing, right? ;)