Our New Braunfels Day Trip, Part 2: Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch.

Before we headed underground to check out the amazing Natural Bridge Caverns, we spent the morning exploring the wildlife safari next door at Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch. While Ava had been twice before, they were both when she was two or younger, and she really enjoyed rediscovering it and interacting with all of the different animals! It was obviously Jack's first time, and we've certainly added another animal lover to our family, because he ate it all up! From feeding the goats to seeing the parrots and monkeys and lemurs on foot, to all of the safari animals during the drive through portion, he was in awe:

When we first arrived, we needed to stretch our legs after the drive down, and so we hopped out and checked out the petting zoo and walking portion of the Wildlife Ranch. The petting zoo and feeding the goats was a huge hit with both kiddos!

After we managed to feed the goats what amounted to a bags worth of food, we then explored a bit more - visiting the twin baby giraffes that are only the ninth documented set born in the world (!!), and hopped into the car for the drive through experience!

The park itself is separated by region, and the first portion was comprised of deer, elk, buffalo, yak, antelope, giraffe, and other similar creatures, and definitely was a great way to kick off the sightseeing!

From there, we then visited the Tower Plains addition that was new since our last visit, and added a couple miles to the experience!

We then made our way into the Kenyan Preserve, complete with zebras, ostriches, and more! 

We love getting up close with the animals, the kids especially, and Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch is the perfect place to see zoo-like animals in an up close and personal, one-of-a-kind experience!

Girl's Weekend!

David's bachelor party was this past weekend, so he took off with the boys to Vegas, and my mom, Ava and I got to have a girl's weekend. We had a GREAT time!

Friday, since I unfortunately still had to work, we loaded up all four kids and drove down to New Braunfels to the Natural Bridge Wildlife Safari for the second time. It was awesome.















After we dropped the boys back off at the end of the day, we headed to Michaels to make a quick stop to look for a flower girl basket for Ava. Over $100 and an hour later, we walked out with the makings for some DIY wedding crafts, including A's flower girl basket, her flower girl headband to coordinate, and - most importantly since my bridal portraits were the next morning - the makings for my flowers. I hadn't been planning to do silk flowers, but I wanted a bouquet to do my pictures, and most of all wanted to do wedding stuff with my mom, so we decided on colors and flowers then and there. We spent the rest of the night putting them together and chatting/watching TV and movies together :)

Here's the finished bouquet (pardon the crappy phone picture):



Saturday morning began bright and early, since we were planning to take advantage of the natural morning light for my bridal pictures. I had been stressed about how to do my hair and makeup, since I was planning to have them professionally done and my pictures started at 9am and I had no one booked yet, but my mom and I made it happen. It was awesome. She's definitely the mother of four girls! Ha!

I won't say much about my bridals, except that I always have a hard time in front of the camera that way. When photographed interacting in a normal setting, I'm all about it. But just me, in front of the camera, trying to act natural? FAIL. Thankfully, my photographer is so fantastic, she made it work and I can't wait to see the final product :) There will be a sneaky sneak peek this week for Wordless Wednesday of our flower girl :)




After that was over, we headed over to Central Market to play and eat lunch, since we were all starving after hours of "playing dress up" (Ava was such a trooper!!!!). We had a great afternoon! From there, we went home, and just chilled out for the rest of the night and Sunday before my mom left after lunch, enjoying one another's company. Ava LOVED having grandma in town!!!!!