4th Of July 2015

4th of July is a favorite in this house! For all of the years that we were in Utah, the weekend was filled with family BBQ's and Sugar House fireworks! We miss those weekends, but we have loved our 4th of July memories while in Ohio! This year we decided to do something a little different and we got a hotel up in Polaris! It is an area that we love to visit with a lot of fun shops and places to eat, plus it is close to the zoo!

 We started the day with a lot of rubber bands and ribbons! Do you see the star?

 We had plans to go to Krispy Kreme, but when we got there the hot light wasn't on...and Tad was not eating cold donuts (he is a donut snob!). We ended up at a cute breakfast place! The pancakes were bigger than the kids heads, which they loved! After that it was off to the Zoo!

 We had a membership the first year that we were here and kind of had our fill of the zoo during that year. After a two year break, the kids were excited to get another membership, especially because they added some new animals (giraffes) and different enclosures! We had fun seeing the cool tiger exhibit, it had a plane inside that the tigers were playing on! The kids could go into the plane and watch the tigers from inside the cockpit! It was seriously awesome!

 But our favorite part of the day was definitely the pirate boat ride! We waited in line for awhile, but we had fun! There were photo back drops along the way, also it was along the water and there were a ton of garbage fish (I have no idea what kind they are, that is just what we always called them!)! The kids had a blast laughing at how big their mouths were!

 Everyone is ready to go! Ainslee was a little nervous!

 Trey was just flat out excited! There were all sorts of pirates (think Pirates of the Caribbean ride but a little creepier) and they popped out suddenly all over the place. There were also bridges over the top so that people could look down on you. At one point in time we were going right past the gorilla enclosure. I said to everyone, man that is a little scary, what if the gorilla decided to jump over here and take a ride with us. I had just finished when one of the pirates jumped out from behind the tree. I SCREAMED so LOUD. Not just a little jump, whimper scream. Like full on there is a monster under my bed and it just grabbed my foot scream! I was sure that it was a gorilla. Of course there was a bridge full of people right over us as I screamed...everyone had a good laugh. Especially Tad, oh, he thought that it was great! We also got wet a lot, which of course is always fun!

 As we were walking out to leave, the animal show was just about to start! We hadn't been to one at the Columbus zoo, so we popped over and got front row seats to a really fun show! The kids loved seeing all of the animals so close and they were able to pet some of them after the show! Tad has super 7 people selfie skills by the way! I think that we need a selfie stick!

 We decided to just do low key fireworks for the fourth. Like I said early, after years of Sugar House fireworks, we are used to big crowds, long lines and of course fabulous firework shows. We were a little farther from the fireworks than we would like to have been,  but the kids had fun catching fireflies....

 twirling glow in the dark sticks....

 and races!

 Plus the fireworks were fun and the finale was awesome! Plus, we had a big surprise at the end! We got a hotel just right up the road, so we didn't have to drive the hour home! The kids had a blast the next day getting Krispy Kremes (hot) and swimming in the pool! It was a great 4th of July!!!