This weekend, Husband and I packed it up for a little impromptu road trip. After too much time trapped in the house, the kids and I were getting restless, and starting to foam at the mouth a bit. Even the most creative mom and the most patient kid can get a little loopy after too much time in the same 1200 square feet. My husband is a smart man. He recognized the signs of the impending meltdown, and took prompt action.

Luckily for us, we live a little over an hour away from a really neat, albeit small, zoo. The zoo in question has one big selling point: it is super-affordable. Five bucks a ticket in fact. It was cheaper than a movie. And it required lots of walking…which wore the heathens out. Ahhhhh…good times are good, cheap-kid-exhausting times are better.

We saw all kinds of beautiful animals, like this one. Youngest saw about 300 turtles, which pleased him to no end. He could care less about the lions, tigers, giraffes or elephants. Oh no, it was the turtles that this kid wanted. Even this episode of feeding the birds could not compare to his turtle obsession:

Oldest liked everything but the penguins. He said they were too smelly. Having lived in a house with three males and one bathroom, I think I was immune to the smelliness. Oldest did spend a lot of time obsessing over the zoo map. He needed to know where we were at all times, and eventually turned into our Magellan/Tour Guide.

The zoo reminded me a lot of my home. It is full of adorable animals, which are constantly hungry, high maintenance, need frequent bathing and require special boundaries, less injurious mayhem will ensue. My kids must have felt the similarities, because they had a fun day communing with their long lost brothers.

And mom got to come home with kids that looked a little something like this:

Don’t worry though. That peace lasted all of 10 minutes. They were back to their Tasmanian devil ways in no time.