2021 Spring Break Vacation

By the time the spring rolled around, I was really getting the itch to travel again. We had been living in pandemic mode for the last year, and we had spent far more time at home than we ever have before between Travis working from home and the girls doing so many days of virtual school. In 2020, we went to the beach for a week in the summer and on a short trip to Franklin in October, but those were our only real vacations. I was determined that 2021 would be different, with more trips and memories made away from home.

Some of you may remember that we were supposed to go to Disney World over spring break in 2020, and then the world shut down about 2 weeks before our trip. We decided at that time to postpone our trip a year to spring break of 2021 with the thought that surely things would be back to normal by then. Haha. The joke was on us. Yes, Disney World was open again but it definitely wasn’t back to normal yet (and still isn’t today as I’m writing this). They were requiring masks indoors and outdoors unless actively eating and drinking, and many attractions still weren’t available. There were no fireworks and no character meet and greets either. We would be wearing masks in all our pictures and wouldn’t be able to see the girls’ smiles. For all the money it was going to cost, we decided we would rather just postpone AGAIN in the hopes that waiting a few more months to go over fall break would bring a little more normalcy than we would get in March.

Rather than just sit at home over spring break because we were no longer going to Disney, we decided to plan a different trip to give us something to look forward to. In the early weeks of the pandemic, I stumbled across some “home safari” videos on Facebook that the Cincinnati Zoo was making for kids while the zoo was closed to the public. The videos were really fun and interactive, and the zookeepers would answer questions that were submitted during the live videos. Anyway, it really piqued my interest in the Cincinnati Zoo, and the more I looked into it, the more I thought the girls would love it. We had also heard about the Ark Exhibit and Creation Museum in nearby northern Kentucky and thought those would be fun to see as well while we were in the area. It made for a great plan B spring break trip. We invited the Loveless family to go with us, and the girls were even more pumped. I didn’t realize until after we invited them that Carter’s spring break was actually a different week than ours (whoops!), but they still made it work to be able to go with us. We were so excited!

Before we left on our trip, the girls and I checked out the Cincinnati Zoo’s website for a list of all the animals they have. Of course, Brooklyn wanted to make a list of all her “must-see” animals. It was a pretty long list! ;)

Savannah wanted to make her own list too! I love her phonetic spelling…so cute!

I also loved the packing lists that the girls made. Here was Brooklyn’s. She listed the important things, of course…her clothes, toys, blanket, books, and drawing stuff.

Savannah’s list of “wut” to pack for our trip :)

We left our house on Tuesday, March 16th to head to our Airbnb in Florence, KY. The drive was a little over 5.5 hours, so not too bad at all!

We stopped at a Chick-fil-a near Nashville for lunch, which is always a big hit with our crew.

The girls passed the time in the car by watching movies (such a nice thing to have on long car rides!) and playing with their stuffed animals…

…sleeping for part of the way…

…and prepping for our zoo day by reading a big animal encyclopedia :) The drive was pretty uneventful, and we were glad to finally get to the rental house a little after dark that evening. Traveling with kids is definitely getting somewhat easier now that the girls are a little older.

This was our first time renting through Airbnb, and we found a large house in a quiet neighborhood that seemed to be centrally located between all three places we were touring on our trip. The house had 4 bedrooms (all upstairs) and a basement with a pool table and games. It looked really nice from the pictures! Well, let’s just say it was a very interesting experience. The owner met us at the house to give us a tour (which I thought was strange), and he had all these rules for us: No touching the walls. No shoes on the carpet. No jumping (after one of our kids jumped up and down in excitement). No using the jacuzzi tub in the master because of covid…haha. We also figured out pretty quickly that the wiring in the house was really messed up. None of the bedrooms had working light switches, and there were no lamps in three of the rooms, which meant to turn the light on and off, you had to pull the cord on the overhead fan (which the kids weren’t tall enough to do). One room on the main floor had no lamp and no overhead lighting at all, so the room was completely unusable after dark. This was also the room with the thermostat in it…haha. The mattresses were terrible. I could keep going, but I won’t ;) The most egregious thing to me was that we found a drawer stuffed FULL of medicines in the kitchen, which any of the kids could have gotten into if they had been rummaging through drawers. I probably sound like a vacation elitist, but I felt like the pictures and advertising were very deceiving based on what we got. All that to say, we made it work, and the house had working heat and A/C and hot water, so it could’ve been much worse. We were just not expecting all the other issues since the reviews up to our stay had been mostly very positive.

The Loveless crew arrived a little while after we did, and after we gave them the tour and informed them of all the house rules (ha!), it was time to get the kids in bed and ready for our first big adventure the next day.

We decided to go to the Cincinnati Zoo on our first full day in town, Wednesday. It was supposed to be the warmest day of the week with no rain, so it made sense to choose that day. On the way there, we passed the Cincinnati Bengals stadium!

We tried to get there as close to the time they opened as we could, and I was surprised at how many people were there that day. It was pretty crowded at least in terms of what we were used to during the pandemic.

The first animal we saw was the Andean Condor…

The girls have some growing to do before their wingspan is as big!! ;)

The kids enjoyed pretending to be a sea eagle in this gigantic nest :)

Brooklyn was excited to see these poison “dark” frogs in the reptile exhibit ;)

The girls love watching Wild Kratts and couldn’t wait to see a king cobra like they’d learned about in one of the Wild Kratts episodes they’d recently watched.

Biggest cousins…

…and littlest cousins!

After we left the reptile area, we headed over to see the bald eagles!

I thought the nocturnal exhibit was one of the coolest parts of the zoo that we saw. So many nocturnal animals that I don’t remember seeing at other zoos!

We were all excited to see the tiger!

He was close enough that we could get some good pictures of him :)

Our girls were really excited about seeing all of the wild cats, including the snow leopards.

They were so cute all cuddled up together!!

By this point, it was lunchtime, and we didn’t want to push it too much longer before stopping to eat. We found a couple of food trucks nearby, and we were all glad to sit down and take a mask break while we ate.

After lunch, we let the kids choose whether they wanted to ride the train or the carousel, and they chose the carousel. They enjoyed it!

The gorillas were Travis’s favorite!

It was so funny just watching them interact with each other and seeing all their facial expressions.

We saw so many different kinds of snakes!! I’m glad they were all behind the glass ;)

Brooklyn decided her favorite animal of the day was the white lion. She was so excited to see one in person for the first time!!

We made a short stop at the playground for the kids to run around and play. I thought this spider web was so cool!

We got to see the penguins up close…

Abigail was definitely intrigued by them…they were almost her size ;)

The kids thought it was funny that the bear was covered in straw :)

The orangutan was deep in thought. He never moved from his perch.

I liked how the Cincinnati Zoo had so many different interactive things for the kids. This was supposed to be “balancing like a lemur” on the ropes. It was hard!

For a long time, cheetahs were Savannah’s favorite animal, and she was really excited to see the ones at the Cincinnati Zoo. They were cuddling and licking each other, and it was the cutest thing!

She was excited to be in the same picture with them (even though you can barely see them in the background).

One of the most popular exhibits at the Cincinnati Zoo is the hippo exhibit. We were all excited to see “baby” Fiona and her mom, and we timed it perfectly because they were in the water right up next to the glass when we got there. They just kept going back and forth right in front of us. The kids were all so excited!! (And let’s face it…the adults were too…haha).

We stayed there for a while just watching the hippos, and at one point, I looked over, and Abigail had fallen asleep in the stroller. It was close to 4 pm by this point, and she just couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer. It had been a full day!

Brooklyn was really excited to see the African lions, and we saw them next after the hippos. Unfortunately, they just laid there with their backs to us the whole time…haha.

We learned that newborn giraffes are very tall!

We missed the giraffe feeding times, but we still got to see them close up, which was fun.

The elephants were the last animal that we saw. This guy put on a show for us. He was eating out of that hanging blue barrel. It was so cool to watch him use his trunk to get the food and then transfer it to his mouth!

The last thing we did before we left was visit the gift shop, of course! The girls had a tough time making up their mind about what to buy…so many choices! Cici had given them each some money to spend on our trip, which was so sweet.

Overall, it was a great day!! All the kids stayed awake the whole day except Abigail. They were all troopers!! It was a lot of walking and wearing masks all day except at lunch, and they did great and had so much fun. We stayed all day until the zoo closed at 5 pm!! There were surprisingly a lot of people there, but most people wore their masks according to the zoo’s rules. Some of the indoor exhibits got pretty crowded, but we never felt very uncomfortable. I loved how the zoo had so many interactive things for the kids. The exhibits were all really well done.

I think if we’d been there when it was warmer, we would have seen even more animals. There were quite a few animals that weren’t out because it wasn’t warm enough. Manatees and monkeys…just to name a few. Also, the flowers would have been in bloom if we’d gone in the late spring or summer. But it was still a great day, and we were glad we went!!

Brooklyn’s favorite animal at the zoo: white lion (but she also liked the tiger, poison “dark” frogs, African lions, cheetahs, ocelot, sand cat, and the hippos swimming and sticking their head out of the water

Savannah’s favorite animals were the cheetahs because “they were cuddling and licking each other”, elephants “because they were so tall”, white lion, African lions, hippos, giraffes, zebra, poison dart frogs, and all the snakes. She was most interested in seeing the polar bear because she learned about them at school a few weeks before our trip and decided they were her new favorite animal…well, when we got to his habitat, we caught a glimpse of him for just a couple of seconds. We hurried to get a closer look, and the polar bear went back into his indoor enclosure where we couldn’t see him anymore. I didn’t even have time to get a picture! We tried to go back several more times, but the polar bear never came back out. Savannah was very sad but handled it like a champ.

Abigail’s favorite animals were the wolves, lizards, cats, frogs, zebra, hippos, lions, and cheetahs :)

We asked someone to take our picture in front of the big zoo sign at the entrance as we were leaving, and she didn’t even get the sign in the picture…haha. Oh well! We had such a fun time, but we were all happy to sit down once we got to the car!!

The next morning (Thursday), we took our time eating breakfast and getting everyone ready. The girls loved being able to play with their cousins before we headed to the Creation Museum.

The Creation Museum is located in northern Kentucky and was only a short drive from our rental house. It was raining pretty hard when we got there, so we weren’t able to do any of the outdoor activities like the petting zoo or nature trails. This dinosaur was one of the first things we saw when we walked in!

It didn’t take long before we realized that there was going to be a LOT to read in the various exhibits, and most of it was going to be way over the kids’ heads. They enjoyed all of the visuals, but I think they would have gotten even more out of it if they’d been a little older.

The girls liked the Garden of Eden area! It was neat to think about what it might have looked like when Adam and Eve were alive.

The museum had a “talking Noah” and a “talking Methuselah” who would answer questions with the push of a button. The kids were really interested in those!! They also liked the dinosaur areas. There was a really neat exhibit on the development of babies in the womb that I liked. Travis liked the ark area best, and the talking Methuselah. I didn’t get many pictures at the Creation Museum because the kids were racing through each exhibit and not wanting to stop for long. There was a lot to read, and we just didn’t have time to soak it all in with the kids there with us. We might be able to get more out of it if we go back one day when the kids are older. We stayed until about 2 or 2:30, and then we headed back to the house.

We had a quiet afternoon at the house with several of the kids (and even some of the adults) taking naps ;) Savannah and Brooklyn had fun trying to play pool…

Abigail picked out this big lollipop at the zoo’s gift shop, and it was a yummy but messy treat :)

They also had fun playing a board game together. We cooked ravioli for dinner and had a lazy evening at the house.

On Friday, we went to the Ark Encounter, which is owned by the same company as the Creation Museum even though they are located about 45 minutes apart. We had heard great things about the Ark from others who had been to it, and we were excited to see it for ourselves. It was a bitterly cold and windy day. After we parked and got our wristbands, we rode in a shuttle bus that took us to the actual Ark. It was nice to get out of the cold for a few minutes.

Our first impression was wow!! It’s so big!! I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it was much bigger than I thought it would be. It had 3 decks inside and was loaded with informational signs, pictures, and displays. There was a disclaimer at the very beginning reminding everyone that they took some artistic liberties with some areas where there weren’t details given in the Bible (like the names of Noah’s wife and daughters-in-law).

We started on the bottom deck and worked our way up to the top. The bottom deck was dimly light, and you could hear the sound of animals making noise.

I’m not sure I knew there were different types of cubits before I read this sign. So interesting!

There was so much to see just on the bottom deck that we had to stop and take a snack break for a few minutes ;)

We stopped for lunch a little while later at the cafeteria style restaurant right outside of the Ark. It wasn’t cheap, but the food was good, and the kids enjoyed having their choice of desserts, of course!

I really liked this display of the 7 Days of Creation. The Ark had exhibits about a lot of other things from Genesis besides just the flood. Some of the information overlapped with what the Creation Museum covered, but I still enjoyed seeing it all.

The ark had another talking Noah, which the kids loved again. They stood there for a while asking several questions…including “Why do you not look 600 years old?” 😆

I loved the sound effects in various rooms (you could hear the sound of wood being chopped in the display showing Noah doing woodworking). It really helped me have a mental picture of what it might have looked and sounded like inside and just the sheer size of the ark. The top deck had Noah and his family’s living quarters, which was Savannah’s favorite part. She just lingered wanting to look at each room and all the details in it. She even said she wished she could live in the ark after seeing that part 🥰 Brooklyn and Abigail loved “talking Noah” the best. Abigail took a pretty long nap in the stroller after lunch. It was super crowded when we first got there (the Creation Museum was pretty crowded too), but it thinned out by the afternoon.

There was a “spooky” animal room for kids, and one part had a hole for you to stick your hand in and “pet a skunk”. When you put your hand in, it sprayed a puff of air on your hand 😉 Brooklyn and Savannah both tried it. A few minutes later, Savannah asked “How long will my hand smell like skunk?” Haha! 😂

We didn’t do any of the outside activities (petting zoo, playground) because it was so cold and windy that morning, and by the time we finished touring the ark we were exhausted. We stayed from about 10:15 am-4pm. We really enjoyed seeing the Ark and are so glad we went! I would love to go back and see it again sometime.

The girls spent the rest of their money in the Ark’s gift shop, and Brooklyn was excited about the snake she picked out…

We don’t need any more stuffed animals around here, but somehow we keep adding to our collection ;)

Savannah picked out a snake too. I think hers was attached to a lollipop.

We ate leftovers for dinner and the kids played pool with the dads and watched part of Frozen 2. Travis and Tyler also watched some March Madness ;) After the kids went to bed, we played Betrayal—a board game I’d never played before this trip…we also played it Thursday night. It was fun!

The next morning (Saturday), it was time to pack up and go home. The kids finished the rest of Frozen 2 while we got everything ready to go. Of course, Travis wasn’t too busy to bust out his best “Into the Unknown” falsetto performance. To which one of the twins shouted, “We can’t hear when you’re howling at the moon!!” Haha!! 😂

On the way home, we stopped at Culver’s for lunch. It was our first time eating there even though we have one about 5 minutes from our house. It was good!

The girls were big fans when they realized they could get frozen custard after they were finished :)

We had a great trip, but some of us were worn out by the time we drove home ;) We packed a lot of walking into a few short days.

We let each of the girls pick out a postcard from the Ark’s gift shop, and I loved that Brooklyn used hers to write Cici a “thank you” card.

We had such a fun trip!! This was our first “cousin” trip, and we’d love to do another trip with the Loveless family in the future. Yearly beach trips with my cousins are some of my fondest memories from when I was growing up. I’d love for the girls to have similar memories to look back on!