Bennett turns 4

I cannot believe that my sweet Bennett is already 4 years old! This year is the first year that his birthday party was actually on his birthday. Saturday June 2, 2012 we woke Bennett up and had his favorite breakfast-doughnuts.  His birthday party was at 10:00 so we didn't have a ton of time to spend time at home before we left for his "cowboy" party.  We did let him open his gift from us first. We like to keep our gift seperate so it doesn't get lost in all the other gifts. It was so funny: we have a rule in our house that you cannot sit/stand/etc on the kitchen table (with boys, things you once thought were common sense become "rules") but I let him open his gift while sitting on the table so I could get a good picture. So now, he says the rule is that you can only sit on the table on your birthday.

Bennett loves animals.  I mean, he really loves animals. He has millions of toys and all he wants to do is build farms and jungles. So he really wanted a party with animals. I could not find a petting zoo for anything, so I started looking into pony rides. We checked everywhere in Valdosta and decided to have his party at JustAMere Farm in Hahira.  It was the cheapest and had the nicest facility. So a Cowboy theme it became. 

Where the Wild Things Are

Quinn had a Young Farmer Conference to attend in Atlanta. He needed daddy to go with him to serve as a delegate, so we decided to make it a family affair. Mama, daddy and the four of us set off to Stone Mountain for some fun fun fun!

We left on Friday morning. A mistake on my part was not to wake up Levi early. I was not as prepared as I like to be so I let him sleep in order to finish getting the house clean and stuff packed into the car. That meant he was only up for an hour before we strapped him in the car seat.  Not a good idea.  He cried almost the whole way.  Bennett, on the other hand, was  a trooper. He didn't sleep either but alternated between watching a movie, playing his leappad (mimi and papa suprised him with it for the trip), and playing travel games with me.

When we finally made it to our hotel, all of us were glad to be out of the truck and so happy to see Mimi and Papa.  Quinn and Daddy didn't have much time before their first meeting, so we grabbed a quick bite and went our seperate ways.  Mimi, the boys, and I went exploring. We checked out every square inch of that resort. Since it is on the State Park, there are LOTS of walking trails.  We made it back from our journey about the time the fellas finished the meeting and headed out to dinner. After dinner, Bennett was dying to get into the pool. So, that's what we did!  It was an indoor heated pool so it was really nice. Quinn needed to work on school work, and Levi needed to go to bed, so Bennett and I had some quality time together splashing around.  I sure do love that boy.

Saturday morning, we headed to Stone Mountain. Everything was closed-except Snow Mountain, and it was sold out. I am pretty glad thought because it was almost $20 a person and the boys were too small to do most of it.  We made an impulsive decision (something I RARELY do) to go to the zoo.  I am so glad we did. I didn't know if I would like it because I was visualizing a bigger scale Wild Adventures, but it was so nice. They have lots of baby animals and Bennett loved looking at them. My favorite was the tiger exhibit.  It had a mom and 2 cubs. I am sure the cubs were brothers because they were so rough with each other. I loved watching them run and wrestle, and when one would get tired, he ran to his mama for protection. Levi loved the petting zoo area. We had a hard time keeping him from kissing the goats.  We had to get back to hotel by 5:00 so Quinn and Daddy could get to their meeting, but I still feel like we had plenty of time to see everything (about 4 hours.) While the men did business stuff, the rest of us had a grand ole time. We ate at the hotel resturaunt which Bennett loved because they had a dessert buffet. Then we headed to the "game room" which consisted of about 3 video games and one of those claw things. Bennett had no idea what he was doing, but had fun anyway. Levi enjoyed watching big brother. The guys met up with us when they were done, and we all hit the pool for a quick swim before bedtime.

When we woke up Sunday, we packed it up and headed back home. But we had one stop waiting on us-the aquarium.  I wish I could have gotten Bennett's picture when we first walked in and he saw the huge tank of fish. It was priceless. We went to the dolphin show first. I really didn't know what to expect, but this was not it. Don't get me wrong; it was awesome. But it wasn't your ordinary dolphin show.  It was an actual performance with actors and dolphins. I wish I had know a little more about it so I could have better prepared the boys. There were cannons and some "fight" scenes so they got scared a few times, but overall they both loved it.  Levi was sad that he couldn't get in the tank with the dolphins.  As we made our way through the aquarium, both boys were awestruck with the fish tanks. We crawled in the tunnels, did the touch tank, and saw the hundreds of frogs. Then they were done. We didn't go through the "swamp" exhibit because we see alligators all the time. They were were so over all the crowds and stimulation that we decided to call it a day.

Bennett and Levi both slept most of the way home.  Overall, it was a great trip.