Alabama continued: Memorial Day at Spring Park and UNA

For our Memorial  Day celebration, Lynae had heard about this park in Tuscumbia that had a duck pond, and a train, and some other things that sounded like fun, so we got directions and headed out.  When we got there, Camden went for the playground and we followed.  We laughed a little bit about how we had one toddler and four adults, but we had fun with him anyway.  Everyone took a turn.

 Mommy and Camden hit the slide...

Hannah and Camden on the big purple dinosaur...

 Daddy helps Camden "fly"...

  "Aunt" Julie and Camden swing...

 Lynae thought this would be fun... Camden, not too sure!!

After the playground, we headed over to the duck/geese pond.  These are birds that are used to people, because they were not shy.  We didn't have any bread with us, but Lynae found some graham crackers in the diaper bag and it turns out, the ducks and geese are not picky. 

 Camden was a little shy.

 This picture kind of made me laugh because I told Camden to point to the goose and my camera has a kind of long delay, so it's kind of amazing I got a picture with his finger pointing exactly to the goose.  He was pretty excited by this point. 

 Hannah was a little nervous about how close this goose was getting.  I thought it was a funny picture. 

 This one really wanted his picture taken up close.  He's the same one Hannah is afraid of in the earlier picture. 

 This is me feeding the goose a graham cracker... he was hungry and ripped it right out of my hand. 

After a few minutes at the duck pond, we decided to check out the train.  They also had a little roller coaster and a merry go round.  You could ride all of them for $7 each so we bought the passes and set out.  Lynae and Tyler decided they could share one pass and took turns taking Camden.

 The girls and Camden. 

 Lynae didn't want to ride on the roller coaster so Hannah, Tyler, Camden, and I went on it.  I took Camden with me, and Hannah and Tyler rode in front and in back.  It was a pretty rickety jerky roller coaster and I couldn't tell if Camden was enjoying it.  He was crying by the end.  It was all I could do to hold his head against me so it wouldn't jerk violently.

The merry go round had a 150 pound weight limit so we put Camden on the horse and I rode standing next to him.  It kind of freaked him out, but I think he had a good time.

After the carousel we decided to go on the train again, this time with Tyler, and this time I sat in front of them so I could take pictures of Camden.

One more time around was enough for us (doesn't Camden look bored) so we decided to head over to Big Spring (hence the name of the park) and take in the waterfall.

We played for a few more minutes at the park and then left to get some lunch.  We ended up getting take out from a fast food place called Zaxby's.  It's not really any different from regular fast food, except they have Zaxby's sauce which if you ask me is a take off from fry sauce, but better!  Yes folks, you heard it here first.  My company invented fry sauce and we've found better!!  Don't tell my boss okay??  After lunch we put Camden down for his nap and Hannah decided to nap too, so we left them home and Lynae and Tyler and I headed out again, this time for a tour of UNA-- The University of North Alabama-- which is where Tyler works and the reason for them living in Alabama!!

This is Tyler's office.  He's the ticket manager for the University.  He's been a pretty big asset to them.  Before he came they didn't sell tickets online or have Credit card options.  He's also redesigned the season tickets to make them look a little more appealing.  Over all he has a pretty cool job, if you ask me.  He may feel differently, but it's well suited to him.  We took a tour of campus and stopped in to see Leo and Una, the school mascots.  UNA is the only school in the country that has live lions mascots living on campus.  They live in a 12,764 square foot habitat right in the middle of campus and people can go and visit year round.

The University of North Alabama is a pretty old school.  It started as Grange College in 1830.  Some of the buildings date back really far and it is a very pretty campus.  This building Wesleyan Hall, was used by both sides during the Civil War.  They have the original building built in 1855 and then a new building that was modeled exactly after the original.   

While we were in Tyler's office, Lynae was looking for a souvenir for me and Tyler pulled out this shirt.  It's a fun souvenir and it was free!!

After the campus tour in the heat and humidity, we decided it was time for some ice cream.  There is a great place called Ice Cream Corner where they make all their ice cream, and sell different flavors daily.  Lynae had told me about it, and then on Sunday we were talking to Jocelyn (Lynae's sister in law) and she told me I had to try the cinnamon ice cream with chocolate chips.  Lynae called ahead to make sure they had it, and when we found out they did, we went and got a half gallon.  Jocelyn knows her ice cream!!  It was sooooo good!!! After ice cream, Camden woke up from his nap, so we decided to pull out the kiddie pool and let him swim while we played Yahtzee.  I'm pretty sure Tyler won that too...

Dinner that night was a cook out.  Lynae had planned on hot dogs and hamburgers and sent Tyler out to the barbecue.  We had baked beans and chips and lemonade.  It was really good.  Later that night, we decided to leave Tyler with a sleeping Camden and have a girls night out.  We went to the movies.  Lynae said she hadn't been to a movie since Camden was born.  We went and saw Something Borrowed.  I didn't really like it.  It looked really cute, but I didn't really like how the plot progressed.  After the movie, Hannah was all ready to go out on the town, but Lynae and I didn't get our naps that day so we were ready for bed.  We went home and hit the sack.