Wild Animal Ranch

We finally made it to Asheboro and Karen's house.  Because she and Rob still had to work during the week, and Megan still had school, we had to continue to entertain ourselves.  Karen was great at giving us ideas.  She sent us to a wild animal ranch one day.  I wasn't sure to expect, but what we got was a whole new experience with animals!

Here is the concept of the ranch:  all kinds of animals, exotic and common, ranging together around the park.  When you drive in you buy buckets of feed for a few dollars.  Whenever you get the urge, you hold your bucket out the window, and the very well trained "wild" animals come eat out of your bucket.

Simple enough concept, great in theory.  But we forgot to consider how tenacious critters can be!  The antelope knew hot to grab a bucket with their teeth and fling it over their heads thus stealing all your food at once.  This happened to Joshua the first 10 feet in the gate.

Others simply put their whole heads in the car and bullied your food away from you.

This one I called "Michael's Girlfriend"  She was getting fresh!  She also had horns that got stuck in the window.  We eventually had to drive off to get her unstuck.

Ever fed a Giraffe?  How cool is that?!!

The ranch also had lovely gardens to walk around.

Ostrich.  Need I say more?

Sweet and slimy buffalo.  He also got a little pushy, and in the end stole my bucket.  I was covered with slobber.

By the time we drove out of there, we had feed all over inside the rental van, slobber running down the windows and doors, and scratches all over the paint from aggressive goat hooves.  It took a good while to clean it and get it presentable before we could return it.  It was totally worth it though!  We all thought this was one of the very best parts of the trip.  Such fun to experience wild things!

Maritime Museum

After Fort Macon came the North Carolina maritime museum.  We had been looking forward to this place for months!  After watching Pirates of the Carribean 4 we looked up info online about Blackbeard.  We were surprised to learn that he sunk his ship right off the coast of NC, and the remains were in this museum!  We had to see it!

We were having fun before we even got in the door.  This anchor was in the parking lot.

Inside an exploratory submarine.  It was so claustrophobic in there.  The kids loved it though.

I somehow managed to forget to take any pictures of Blackbeard's things!  I must have been oohing and ahhing too much to grab the camera.  But the artifacts were really neat and the museum staff were a hoot as well!

Fort Macon

If you know me, you know that I LOVE museums and historical sites.  So we took the long coastal drive from the Ocean Isle beach to Asheboro where Karen lives.  Along the way we stopped at fort Macon, which was a fort used during the civil war.  There was even a pretty good sized battle here.  What a neat place!  The kids loved the cannons and moat.  The ovens and canon ball forge were really neat as well.  I loved the letters in the museum written by an officer's wife detailing life with a toddler in the fort.  What a neat piece of history.

North Carolina Zoo

North Carolina is famous for their Zoo.  Karen managed to snag us some free tickets, so she and Megan and our family spent the day checking out the animals.  The weather was ideal for a zoo day -- not too hot, and lots of shade. 

If you look carefully you can see the alligator.

Lazy cougar.

We love turtles!

Megan and Caitlin seem to be soul sisters.  It was so cute to watch their friendship grow.

Queen bee?

Karen, Me, Megan, Joshua

The chimps were amazing to watch.  They came right up to us at the windows.  One was mothering an orphaned baby and we got to see her grooming it and taking it inside for dinner.  Really neat.

Andrew gets a close encounter.

We found a baby snake on a pathway.  Yes, the un-caged animals are the most interesting!

Beach!

What good is a trip to the coast if you don't spend some good time frolicking in the ocean?  The boys had such a wonderful time in the waves and sand.  Caitlin, not so much.  She hated the sand on her feet, and didn't really care for the water either.  The best we could do for her was let her play in the firmer sand with her shoes on.  Aside from the moment when Andrew took his swim suit off completely when we weren't looking, our beach time was wonderful!

Andrea's Wedding

In May our family had the awesome opportunity to fly out to North Carolina for the wedding our our niece, Andrea.  It was such a story book wedding!  We flew in and got to the beach the night before the wedding, so it was the first thing we experienced on our grand tour of North Carolina--and what a great way to start a vacation!  

I will start you off with some of the professional pictures.  It is tradition in a beach wedding to "trash the dress".  Which is exactly what you think it is.  The bride and groom run into the ocean after the ceremony and dinner.  It was so much fun to watch!  Andrea purposely bought an inexpensive dress so she wouldn't feel too bad about ruining it.  These two are such a beautiful couple, and so in love.  The trashing was my favorite part!

Here is Andrea walking down the "isle" (really just the sand from the catwalk to the arbor) with her dad, Rob.  Rob is usually stoic, but he teared up a little that day.

The whole group.  No shoes were allowed at the wedding.  How cool is that?

I love this picture.  Here are all the Barlow/Young ladies.  Karma (Mom)  Karen (brides mom)  Andrea, Megan (brides sister) and Becky (brides aunt and Karma's other daughter)  Such lovely ladies.

Andrew on the morning of the wedding.

Joshua as we all waited for the ceremony to begin.

Michael was enjoying the beach immensely.

Here comes the groom...

Caitlin was mesmerized by the favors.

After the ceremony we had a nice dinner in the hotel.  It was a small wedding group, but we had a lot of fun! We even broke out and danced while the bride and groom were changing.

Poor Daniel got stuck with our family for the dinner.  I guess that's what you get when you are single and the tables seat six...

Gotta love that boy.

It was a wonderful wedding,and a great event for the Barlow family.  Best wishes, luck, and prayers to the newlyweds in their new life!

Joshua's Recital

I am so proud of my boy!  Joshua has really started to excel with piano.  This year his spring recital was held in the auditorium of the high school.  He handled the pressure very well and performed his pieces the best he had ever done.  What a stud!