Wild Adventures with Mike

Last week Mike and I went to Columbus GA and along with going to Callaway Gardens which is a must see for anyone in that area or within driving distance, Mike came across a place that looked fun. It's called Wild Animal Safari. We had already walked a ton in Callaway Gardens and I was feeling a little pooped and offered to just head home. But Mike said lets go see what it is. I'm so glad we did. We paid for the tickets and bought some food for the animals. We were given the choice to rent one of the parks cars or drive our own. That seemed harmless enough until she said, many of the animals have sharp horns and we don't cover damage to your car. Mike quickly said, okay we will take one of yours.

After seeing our adventure car and laughing about it off we went. It was just okay at first.. we saw pigs, small cautious fallow deer. We had to throw the food to them. The giraffe was way off in the distance and that was a disappointment to say the least especially when we were able to look back and see other cars feeding it.

Anyhow the adventure was about to begin. We came across some buffalo. These were no ordinary buffalo these were huge DIRTY buffalo and they had no problem sticking their heads all the way into the car to get food. A lot of our photos have only mouths or a bulging eye because that is what we saw and we couldn't get back fast enough. The one buffalo whose tongue is to the side loved Mike. He was huge and a bit scary looking which left Mike's left arm and shirt slimmed. I thought I was going to die laughing and couldn't snap the pictures fast enough. Mike's words.. lets move on to see what big animals are on your side of the car! That he did. But I was wise... and as they came roaming to my side... I rolled the window up which left slobbers on the window.

We had so much fun and this is a great place to go if you find yourself near Pine Mountain Ga. We think we might take the kids with us when Brittany and Robby come in Dec. One lesson learned we need to buy one bag of food for each person. We had way to many fun animals we couldn't feed because we ran out of food.

If you ever want ideas about fun stuff to do Mike and I have plenty of them and we are finding even more places to go check out. Thanks for being such a great adventuresome husband Mike. I always have a great time when we travel together. It off to our next adventure!

Mom's

So last week was Mother's Day and I had planned on posting about my mom. But that never got done. But I would like to talk a bit about her.

So many times we get caught in the trap of saying... well my mom didn't... my mom wasn't.... or my mom treated me ... and I will say it is an easy thing to do. But over the years I have come to understand that my mom was the best mom for me. Of course she wasn't perfect. She made mistake and so do/did I. She use to tell me that her sister use to say, "I did the very best I knew how to do." I thank her for being the best mom she could. Of course we had some rough patches growing up but all in all I think I turned out pretty well. Thanks Mom!

Last weekend Mike and I went to Columbus GA. We started a few years ago picking places we could run off to and check out that didn't take a tremendous amount of time getting too. Columbus GA is one of those places. Our girls have been to parts of Callaway Gardens so we thought we would like to as well and see what there was to check out. We found a ton of stuff to do in Columbus but not enough time to do it all. We will have to go back again.

We drove the extra hour to Callaway Gardens and the fun began. We started off at the Discovery Center. It was amazing and gave us just a small glimps of what was ahead of us. We watched a predatory bird show which was interesting, Mike's comment was less talk more birds please! We saw a bridge with lots of people leaning over the side. That caused us to walk to the edge and lean too. We found turtles and fish. Lots of them. We fed them and watched this one little baby turtle ride around on the backs of the bigger turtles. So fun to watch.

We got into our car and we were off to the Horticultural Center. We found one of these in Ashville a few years back and loved it. But this place was not to be out done. It was amazing! We walked into our first room where there hung huge baskets of Petunias. My mother grew these flowers all the time. You have to pinch the heads off when they die so they will keep making flowers. I hated pinching the heads off these plants but seeing them made me think of Mom and pinching the heads off. I learned to love flowers because my mom loved flowers and I was surrounded by them all the time. We continued our walk through the center and as we ventured into the center the more my heart started to patter and the tears came. Oh how mom would have loved this place. I came across beautiful Orchids and stopped and enjoyed them for a while. Kathy and Doug Pulley use to give mom either whole plants or stems of orchid flowers. I love orchids because they remind me of my mother. They had a ton of orchids to view. While Mike and I walked throughout the center there was a sense of peace in my soul. I missed my mom but was so thankful she gave me a great love of nature. As I took pictures with my phone and sent them off to different people it gave me time to remember such a fine woman who I feel blessed to call Mom.

Mom taught me how to clean. She made sure our home was always clean and presentable. She taught me that it was important to make the other person in the conversation feel important. If you ever run out of things to talk about ask them about themselves. People will go on and on about themselves she would say. She taught me to keep my knees together when wearing a dress so I wouldn't show my panties. She shared her love of music with us. We would be asked to sit and listen to classical music. To this day I love Handel's Messiah. She would say sit down I have something to read to you and we would sit and listen to what she had found. She showed me the importance of attending the temple and being within those sacred walls. She loved working in the temple and some day I will do that and I can't wait. She loved the gospel and often I would see her reading scriptures and preparing lessons weeks in advance. She taught me that a job will done is best and to always give your best. These are just a few of the things she taught as she took her job of mother very seriously.

She taught me to be the woman I am today. Mom I love you and miss you. Perhaps Heavenly Father will let you peek into my blog so you can see how very much you mean to me. I miss you! Happy Mother's Day to all the fine and wonderful women I know and to especially my wonderful mother!