A Family Day Full of Emus & Flags

I was excited to tell Tate about the fun place we were going on Memorial Day. I explained the wildlife preserve with all of the animals we would see and how cool it would be that we could feed them from the car. His response, "Well that doesn't have anything to do with Memorial Day."

Touche, kid. 

Luckily we found an impressive Memorial Day tribute on the way home. :) But first we spent a few hours at the Fossil Rim Wildlife Preserve. When you really think about the concept of all of these cars in line paying money to throw $8 a bag food at animals in an un-natural, natural habitat, it is kind of funny. But we fell for it and had a great time. 

Some of the highlights included going old school driving with kids...kids in your lap, hanging out windows.

 Lots and lots of animals.

Everyone was excited and looking forward to the giraffes. We drove by and saw there were several all happily eating the food people were giving them.

I guess we were a little late. By the time we got there, they wanted nothing to do with us. Or our $8 a bag food. Guess they were full. (And disclaimer on the video, Will used to have a squeaky giraffe baby toy that was named "Giraffey." So all giraffes are now called Giraffey by Strzineks.) :)

Will enjoyed himself for the most part. He did not like when we got stuck and had to wait on other cars.

So let's be honest. During the 3-hour adventure, there was plenty of this as well. :)

And for the grand finale, may I present...the creepiest picture EVER. That thing is real! If the video was running, you would hear me yelling at Wade to run for our lives and get those windows up before Will is killed by the emu while he watches PBS Kids on my iPhone. We live dangerously.

Thankfully we all got out alive. :) Funny little place, and we all enjoyed it. 

And a pleasant surprise was that on our drive home we came across a very moving Memorial Day tribute. The boys loved running through the flags. And our love-of-all-things-history & war-related oldest enjoyed reading the nametags on each flag.

Thankful for our own family's piece of history with my grandfather's sacrifice serving in World War II.

It was a fun day together!