Zacchaeus Had Some Moxy!

Last week was our annual "family fun week", the only week in our summer where: a) Mark doesn't have summer hours to work at school, and b) there are only seven days tilll football starts. Since I was gone for the first 4 days of the week, Mark took it upon himself to uphold the "family fun week" tradition of going on some mighty fun day trips. Last Tuesday he took the kids to Grand Harbor water park--discount day! score!!, then over to Jumping Janes (inflatable funland), Storybook Garden, and out for pizza. Whew! That night when I called from Kentucky, the kids talked non-stop about all of their adventures. Wynne rode the big slide with Daddy, Shae slid all by herself, exclaiming, "I wasn't even scared!"
Funny thing, Shae was VERY scared when Daddy put her up in this sycamore tree at the Swiss Valley Park. The day after my return from Kentucky, we loaded up the Burb and took another day trip to this beautiful area west of Dubuque. You can't tell, but Shae was screaming the whole way through this picture!


After a quick shot and safe landing, Wynne was anxious to scramble up into the crook of the tree, but once there she quickly changed her mind. "Down! Down! Down!!" she cried, and that was the end of that. She managed to compose herself for a trunk shot. I wish I had a measuring tape--the circumference on this thing was HUGE.
And if you looked at it from a certain angle, it looked like one of the trees from the Wizard of Oz, expressions and all!
I couldn't help but sing a little "Zacchaeus was a wee little man, and a wee little man was he...He climbed up in the sycamore tree for the Lord he wanted to see". Zacchaeus must have had some major guts to climb a tree of this stature to get a better vantage point of the Messiah. Despite his crooked tax collector-little jerk-status, you have to give him credit for taking some initiative!
The neighboring sycamore was a hollowed-out beauty.

The kids looked like gnomes...or the Keebler elves, perhaps?

A mile down the road, we thoroughly enjoyed the Swiss Valley Nature Preserve and Center. The interpretive center was beautiful and full of natural wonders for us to explore. It was really quite impressive!





The albino exhibit was informative and a little freaky.

There was an entire room full of bears. I must admit, it was kind of scary standing next to them!

After visiting the cneter we hiked a few miles in the preserve. Our goal was to find the old schoolhouse.

The trails were very well-kept, but the student-created map was a bit lacking in accuracy. Some of the foot bridges were labeled as tension bridges, and that threw us off. Eventually, we split up to find that darn schoolhouse. I headed south with Cy, Paige, Shae, and Wynne, while Mark and Ally wondered north. We finally found the Prairie Trail and followed it to our destination.

Go Team Mom!!


Mark and Ally found their way to the schoolhouse, and of course we had to take another family picture. (Don't worry; Daddy was holding Dubs in the window.)



Our next destination was to the "Big Rock" as indicated on the map key. After a brief stop at a small creek for some more kid pix...

...we headed deeper into the thicket. Three little girls tired very quickly, so I headed back toward the parking lot with them and Cy.
It was a long walk back to the vehicle, and the kids were thirsty. Of course, I didn't have the car keys and the nature center was closed. Wynne learned how to go potty in the Great Outdoors. Not a pleasant task for young girls, to be sure.
I think Mark and Ally covered all 476 acres of the preserve, judging by the length of our wait and the exhausted expressions on their faces. We ended our day with some hard-serve ice cream (the ONLY kind of ice cream, in my opinion).
It was a great way to celebrate family fun week. I couldn't help but think, when Zacchaeus turned his life around and had Jesus over for dinner, did they celebrate with hard-serve?

Jesus said to him, "Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost."--Luke 19:9-10