Free Fun

After having some gorgeous days of sunshine, it's been back to cool, cloudy, rainy days around here. Two days ago we took the kids to Cabela's, an enormous hunting and fishing store and the perfect place for a rainy day outing. Why is it perfect? Because the kids love it...and it's free!! :) Seriously, it was just as fun as the zoo for the kids (who says the animals have to be alive?) and a whole lot less trouble since it's so close to us and it's all indoors.

The main "exhibit," if you will, is a mountain, complete with waterfall and staged with taxidermic elk, deer, beaver, lynx, prairie dogs, polar bear and tons more!

The only live animals at Cabela's are the fish in a walk-through aquarium. Ben was especially drawn to this bottom-dweller, whom he deemed "cute":

And, of course, the African safari animals on the second floor were a hit too. Abby had especially been looking forward to seeing the elephant.

Ironically, Ben's favorite animal wasn't even a stuffed real one, it was a resin dog named "Bela" that sat right inside the front entrance (which we didn't see until our way out). He didn't want to leave that dog, petting and hugging it continually.

A final highlight for us is getting to see Kevin's nephew Josiah who works at Cabela's. We made sure to go through his checkout line so we could say hi (okay, so technically our trip wasn't free; Kevin needed some super-duper $60(!!) fishing line :).