The Oklahoma Aquarium

Today was one of four annual Homeschool Days at the Oklahoma Aquarium in Jenks, OK. It's only about a 30-minute drive and definitely beats Mall of America's Underwater Adventures! We got a lower admission price as part of this event and a fun 30-minute classroom show. This picture is in front of the turtle tank. It was at the beginning of the "Native Oklahoma Animals" exhibit. We got to see lots of the animals that are native to Oklahoma, such as red-eared slider turtles, (even an albino one!)

(It was hard to get a good picture of this guy through the glass.)

alligator snapping turtles. . .

(this one was HUGE! No zoom used for this picture!)

. . .diamondback water snakes, (sorry-no pictures since I'm the cameraman and wouldn't go near them!), and a native Oklahoma GATOR! We didn't know they had gators here, but the sign showed that they're in southern OK. We'll stick with the pretend ones:

They also had the animal Dylan has been waiting his whole life to see in person:

The American Bullfrog! Since we moved down here, Dylan has been asking everyday if he can catch one of these guys and keep it. He's loved frogs since he was about two years old and is having a hard time waiting until spring to go check these guys out by the river. The bullfrog isn't quite his favorite frog, but it is the most within reach. His favorite is actually a very fascinating frog called the Goliath Frog. As the name implies, these frogs are very large. Here's a picture of one that we got off the internet:

As you can see, this Goliath frog is about as big as a fawn! Pretty cool, but we'll probably never see one in real life. So we'll stick with the bullfrogs!

Oklahoma Aquarium has the world's largest bull sharks in captivity and we got there in time for their daily feeding. It was quite the show, but Dylan and Gabie were too scared to go into the tunnel where the sharks swim above you, so we stayed back and watched from another viewing area. Pete took Faith and Vince to get the good spot in the tunnel for the feeding. We could see them on the other side of the tank from where we were sitting. It was pretty cool!

And finally, the animal that has intrigued and fascinated me: the octopus!

Maybe it's their body shape, the hundreds or thousands of suctions on their legs, or their solitude nature, but either way, they just seem so mysterious!

Today's trip was so much fun and there's so much left to see down here! And because of the $17 we saved from the homeschool days event, we sure are thankful businesses are recognizing families like ours!

The Snowfall

Last week, we had a winter weather advisory. (I forgot to put these pictures on until now.) They said snow was expected, and this is what I woke up to:

I think it officially ended up being "a dusting." Vince was excited though because he likes snow and it just happen to fall on his birthday (see a later post for Vince's 12th birthday). From this next picture, you can see that most of the visible snow was on the house roofs before the sun came out.

(This picture's also for you, Randy! You can see for yourself how steep our driveway is!) The houses on the opposite side of the street are probably 50 feet or so lower in elevation than our house and the houses behind them are probably 100 feet higher! That's our neighborhood and this is our weather down here! It's a good thing we got our fill of snow while we were in Minnesota!

I can't believe the weather difference!

Okay, so yesterday was a beautiful, sunny 61 degrees for the high! And I heard from some of you in Minnesota that it's been below zero?! Talk about arctic weather!

My dad, who has been staying down here with us to work, is flying back to Minnesota this Saturday and admitted that he's nervous about the drastic climate change he's going to be going through. That's more than a 60-degree difference?!!!! Feel free, Minnesota friends, to comment on this blog this summer when I am unable to go outside for weeks at a time and are paying ENORMOUS electric bills!

We went for a walk yesterday around the neighborhood to the end of our road where there's a cul-de-sac and a GREAT view. (This picture is from Sunday afternoon when it was also a beautiful day and we took this walk with Pete.) I was told that this spot was where the tornado hit 15 years ago, so most of the houses back here are new. In fact, right behind everyone in this picture, a builder is trying to prepare this lot for a house! Subcontractors/builders are encouraged to bring any type of fill they have (concrete, dirt, etc.,) so they can build up this lot enough to build a house on it. In this cul-de-sac, these people obviously don't have any kids or they would fall right off the cliff! Thankfully, our yard doesn't drop straight off like this.

The first day we pulled into Catoosa, this view is the first thing I saw when we exited the freeway. I remember saying, "Whoa, look at those houses way up there on the hill!" My dad then said, "Yep-that's where you live!" My first instinct was serious concern and debilitating fear. But how often do you get to live somewhere where you can see for 20 miles from your own backyard?! (In the picture with Pete and the kids, we were standing about 100 feet in front of the house you see in this last picture on the very right at the top of the hill.)

Missing Our Friends!

While we've had lots of fun down here and the weather has been GORGEOUS, it's been hard lately to look at pictures of everyone from Minnesota. We miss everyone so much, especially our best friends, the Nemitzs.

Whenever my friend Dana and I hung out, people would ask how we met. Last summer, I had a treadmill that I was giving away on Craigslist. Dana and her husband, Randy, came with their two boys to get it one Friday evening. We all got to talking, and they ended up staying for over an hour. We had so many more things we could have talked about, but it was getting late and we all had little ones to put to bed (who, by the way, also connected with each other very well!).

So we connected on a couple of later dates and from then on, our families grew really close. I've learned so much from my friendship with Dana; and Faith now has, as much as we object, a boyfriend!

Dana and Randy's son, Matthew, has become very "into" Faith and even has a special nickname for her: "The Faith." Matthew would say, "I want to go to The Faith's house." Faith, of course, loved this attention too! When these two play, it's as though their minds are one! They want to play the same things and never fight!

The day we moved, they were over at our house the entire day cleaning and loading the truck. We went to their house that night, and they took the kids while Pete and I tried to get some sleep before getting on the road. Then, Dana said a prayer over our family and our trip, and we said farewell. It was bittersweet, but we were SO happy to spend our last day in Minnesota with them!

The Blue Whale of Catoosa

Okay, well maybe it's kinda cheesy, but this Blue Whale of Catoosa is talked about anytime anyone says anything about the city of Catoosa. So we checked it out on a beautiful 72-degree Sunday (notice the T-shirts?!). This whale was built by a man as an anniversary gift to his wife who collected whale figurines. Back in the '70's, local kids used to sneak in and make it their local swimming hole. The builder then constructed concrete picnic tables to match, hired a lifeguard, and charged a small fee for the town's first ever waterpark. There are slides off each side and a diving platform off the end. We went out to the end of it and saw lots of big sunfish and some BIG turtles basking in the sun that were not a recognizable breed to us Minnesotans.

We've decided that while this is a really simple sight, it will be a great spot for our spring/summer picnic lunches since it's only a few minutes away and has some nice picnic tables.

Afterwards, we went home and enjoyed the rest of the weather (did I already mention that it was 72 degrees?). Here's Pete with the kids in front of the garage squinting in the sunlight.

Okay, maybe I'm bragging about the warm weather. But as some of you may have noticed, it came with severe storms last night (Monday night). At about 11:30pm last night, we were in a TORNADO WARNING! It was kind of scary, especially since we don't have a basement, but while it was in our county, our county's pretty big. The storm cell was about 30 miles south of us, so we barely missed it. We did get some serious lightning and thunder overnight though. Sort of weird that since Pete came down here for the first time two months ago, there's been an infamous ice storm that's still being cleaned up a month later and now tornadoes in January. There's been weird weather all around the country though. It doesn't matter though, because I don't need to know the future-I just need to know the One who does!

Route 66 Drive to the Dairy Farm

We found a dairy farm and figured, because of the temperature outside, it would be a great day to check it out for the first time. So we hopped on Historic Route 66 for the first time and drove about 15 miles northeast to Claremore. That's where we found the Swan Brothers Dairy Farm where you can watch them milk the cows between 3 and 5 pm everyday. They also sell milk, cheese, and other things for, of course, great prices as farms normally do. (I like this picture of Dylan because it shows how he's been wearing his Minnesota Twins hat everyday since we've been here in Oklahoma! We've had people ask if we are from Minnesota while we're wearing Minnesota attire and then they'll tell us they knew we were from there because of our accent (not because of what we're wearing!))

This is in front of the window where you can watch the cows being milked. The farmer inside was really nice and kept waving to us, and the kids learned words like "udder" and "raw." We also learned that from two milkings a day, each cow gives about 7 gallons of milk! We bought our milk, a couple of cheeses to try, some farm fresh cream and headed back home on Route 66.

69 DEGREES in Oklahoma!!!!!!!

What a beautiful fall day (in January!) we had today in Oklahoma! I think the official high was 69 degrees, which is Tulsa's all-time record high. The only reason the kids were wearing sweatshirts in these pictures is because it was in our back yard which is all shaded from big oak and maple trees. Hence, the leaves!

Watch out Gabie, here comes Vince!

It was one of those times where God gives you one of those small blessings you forgot you asked for. A few months ago at our house in Zimmerman, I had told Pete that I wished we had trees so we could have leaves to rake up and jump in. He thought it was pretty strange that I was actually asking for leaves in our yard, but it's been a fall tradition since I was a little girl to jump in leaves. My dad has pictures of my siblings and I doing it when we were really little. When Pete came home from work today and saw these pictures, he reminded me of that wish I had a few months ago.

It's been so many months since I remember temperatures this warm and we all loved it! These pics were taken late afternoon-ish, so the temp had already started dropping a little. We first went out front at lunchtime where the sun shines, and we all got pretty warm with long-sleeves on. Tomorrow's forecast looks about the same, so we'll go do some sight-seeing after visiting our new church for the first time.

The Big Trip!!!!!!

The big drive from Zimmerman, Minnesota to Catoosa, Oklahoma. What a journey it was! Not only did we have 4 small children on a normally 12-hour drive, but we had a 24-foot U-Haul truck with every single one of our family's possessions! We cleaned our Zimmerman house (only with the help of friends/family) all day on the 27th, then got on the road that night in hopes of beating the snowstorm.

Well, that obviously didn't happen. Things were great all the way through Minnesota, but halfway through Iowa the snowstorm found us and things started to get scary. Not only was the weather rough, but we had deep-cleaned our entire house and packed everything in the truck that day and drove through the night, so we were all really tired. Thankfully, the kids slept through that part of it. (And I had my first energy drink-all natural of course!) The road got better, but not until we were into Missouri.

What a difference when we got into Oklahoma! The sun started shining VERY brightly and there wasn't snow to be found anywhere! (That definitely makes it all worthwhile!)

It was like two different worlds! You can tell from this picture all the damage done to trees that is very noticeable as soon as you get into Oklahoma. The effects of that early December ice storm is still visible everywhere we go, even with the pile of branches still in our front yard! The state has actually had to hire an outside company to remove thousands of tons of brush from Oklahoma.

Once we got here, the next task was to unload the UHaul at the bottom of our driveway since it's too steep to get it to the top of it. And thanks to Randy and Pete's careful packing skills, we had to be careful when we opened the truck! The kids are really enjoying this new adventure! Gabie was a little unsure the first day while he watched everything be hauled into the new house.

But now that he's been into the new whirlpool tub, he's definitely comfortable!

And the sun has shone everyday that we've been here too! The forecast for Saturday is 65 degrees! Check out the next posts for our field trips to everything in Oklahoma! Thank you, everyone, for your prayers for our safe trip. We know that no matter what the weather/road conditions, our family was being protected and covered by prayers!

Christmas with Friends

After seeing the rest of my family on Christmas morning (my Dad's side), we had the pleasure of spending our Christmas evening with the Padilla family. This family has been a wonderful blessing and joy to us that we met after moving to Zimmerman. And as always, Hiromi put out quite the homemade feast. I'm sorry, but I have to say she is the best cook I've ever known!

Between our two families, there were 10 children running around and playing. Even so, the kids play so well together and we really enjoy our visits with their family. As always, the girls played dress-up. . .

And the boys did their thing.

Thanks Padillas for the blessing you have been to us, and thank you Hiromi for our friendship!

Christmas with Family

It was so nice to be able to have Christmastime right before leaving. While it was bittersweet, it was the best way to say our goodbyes. We went to Grandma Hanson's party on the 22nd (my mom's) without Pete since he was still in Oklahoma.

The kids and I had a blast and Gabie even sat on Uncle Derek's (my brother) lap for a while!

That really meant a lot to me because I've missed my little brother so much all the years he was in the navy. Now that he's back in Minnesota, I'm so sad to be moving away from him. But I am so darn proud of him. He grew up so much while he was gone and he is such a handsome, responsible man!

I know you're really not going to like me for this mom, but I couldn't have a blog about Christmas in Minnesota without this picture. Along with the kids, I am really going to miss you Mom! Thanks for a wonderful Christmas party! (Don't start crying Mom!!!)