Turpentine Creek Big Cat Reserve

We had such a great day on Tuesday!  The snow had melted, the sun was out, and Melissa and boys joined us for an adventure.  Turpentine Creek is the coolest place.  If you've never heard of it, check it out here.  I had seen on the website that they had picnic tables and you could see the cats while having a picnic.  I was thinking the cats would be in the distance...but they were about 10 feet away!  They have a transitioning area next to the main building where they bring the animals when they are first rescued.  They are then moved to "habitats."  It was very interesting and I would recommend it to anyone in NWA. Notice the sign next to me below.  Jayden and Kyler noticed it first...a cougar named after me:

Evan with his Mommy's hair :)

Enjoying the sunshine!

Aren't these the cutest little boys?!!!

A great time at Turpentine Creek, but that wasn't the end of our day!  We headed up to Eureka Springs since it was just 6 miles away.  We saw a sign for the "Natural Bridge and Pivot Rock as featured in Ripleys Believe it or Not."  We decided to check it out.  Notice that the boys have changed shirts...Pop bought them all t-shirts from Turpentine Creek and they couldn't wait to get them on.

This is Pop telling the boys that this piece of equipment is used to make sorgum syrup...he was also telling them that he worked for a week hauling in the sugar cane for his Uncle Chester and he paid him with a gallon of syrup....

And this is still not the end of our day.  When we got back to the lakehouse, we had to have a little time throwing rocks and driftwood into the water:

WHEW....we were all exhausted!