Grandpa Olsen came to visit

My dad, grandpa olsen came to visit us in June. We had such a wonderful time together. The boys really enjoyed spending time with him while he was here. Some of the kids I watch also enjoyed having a new something to keep them busy. I think there was always someone on his lap, which he said was ok. We went and saw Kung Fu Panda together, and dad took Owen to see The Hulk movie, just the two of them. And Owen thought was totally awesome.

I took two days off so that we could go and do some things with him instead of him just sitting here at my house and watching me watch kids all day, doesn't that sound like fun? heheh :)

So we looked online and found some things that are near here that we had not done yet. I have been wanting to go and explore Georgia. I like exploring the different places I have lived. I know that there are things to do in the vicinity and I am glad we went and found some of them, now I know I can take the boys to do some of these again.

The first place we went was to Cheehaw Park Zoo in Albany, Georgia. It is about an hour and 15 minutes from my house. We went into different places to see animals in their natural habitats. I picked some of the pictures that showed some of what we did.


This is the train we rode after we looked through the zoo. The train takes you around to places that you don't see while walking around My dad said there is somewhere like 8000 acres of park here. There is the zoo, a playground, camping, etc.

This is a zebra rolling in the dirt. It was funny to see him do that. He was either cooling himself off, or getting the bugs off of his back.

These are some monkeys that were playing around. There was a baby playing on the fence when we walked up. I tried to get close to take his picture and mom (I think) was trying to tell him from nearby that he should get down, but he was having fun...then as I got closer what I think was the dad hurried over and snatched him off the fence and took him away. It was interesting to watch.
These are 3 Bison we saw. They were just relaxing in the shade. I have never been that close to one before and they were soo big. It was amazing, this picture doesn't do justice to how big they were. We were above them on a bridge. One of the first areas we came to was the alligator habitat. This alligator Chandler is looking at was right under the bridge we were walking on. It was cool, we were only about 2 feet from him. The habitat has 24 four alligators in it. We proably saw about 15 or so. Most of them were in the water.

This is a picture of me and the boys. Hayden was absolutely in love with this train. I don't think he wanted to get off. If he likes this one so much, just wait till my next post when we go ride a "REAL" passenger train. Stay tuned...

This is Chandler, Owen Grandpa (Greg) Olsen & Hayden in front of the FlintRiverquarium that is also located in Albany. We decided to go to Albany on Thursday and do some stuff, then we wouldn't have to get up so early to go to Cordele for the train. Although we still got up early, to make sure we could find it and get some breakfast. The hotel said it had breakfast, but it was juice and one dozen donuts for the whole hotel. Dad, I and the boys could have probably eaten the whole dozen, but I only took one for each of the boys, then told dad we would just get something on the way.

I really liked this cool green tank of fish, and I thought it would make a great sillouette shot of the boys. Just them looking up at the fish. We came down a ramp to see this very large tank of fish. It was really cool to see all the fish close up like that.

The boys wanted me to go climb in these tunnels with them, so when I did my dad took our picture in one of the windows. It was pitch black when I first started climbing the hill into the tunnel. I don't know how anyone sees in there. But there were lots of kids playing in there, so some of them helped me see where to go. :)

Here is Chandler and Owen in one of the windows. Owen was having a blast in the tunnels, but Chandler wasn't so interested in the tunnels, he liked playing in the water making rivers instead.

Here's another alligator that we saw. He was just basking in the warmth, and taking a little nap.

And here is an interesting water toy, that the boys liked playing with. I think they were trying to turn the water things on and off, but I couldn't make any of them work. But they had a good time. And of course we had to visit the souvenir shop. Owen got a toy fish, and Hayden got a snake, that he absolutely loves. We also got each of the boys a flattened penny. I get them every where I can get them. It is the most inexpensive souvenir and it looks cool too.

Stay tuned for the Cordele SAM Shortline train experience in the next few days. We'll be out of town for the Fourth holiday, and then I'll post again. Happy Fourth of July to everyone, have fun and be safe.