A Summer in a Minute

Ok, I'm not a great blogger. I'm about 6 weeks behind. I know this. So I've decided that I have to do a blog blast of our summer, otherwise I will never feel like I can catch up. Here's a synopsis of the Cupak Summer:

June 25-30: Mike and Crissi went to St. Lucia for their 5th wedding anniversary. They scuba-ed, snorkeled, kayaked, tubed, lost a wedding ring, found it, ate a lot of food and got a lot spa treatments. Addie stayed home with Papa and Gigi and ate marshmallows.


July 4th weekend: The Cupaks met the Brookses in Sedona, AZ for a slightly cooler Independence Day.


July 22-31: The whole fam drove up to Orem, UT and spent the week pretending we'd never left. We lived with the Wann's and ate out as much as possible (Cafe Rio, Pizzeria 712, The Chocolate... how we miss you).


August 2-8: We drove over to Los Angeles on a combo work-personal trip. Crissi worked in the Beverly Hills office of her employer for a couple of days, then we spent the rest of the time oohing and aahing over our new niece / cousin, Drea Clausen. Then Addie got her first taste of the beach.

Now we are speeding toward the end of summer (August 29th, in this house). All we have left to do is a large pile of laundry.

{Insert Wizard of Oz Quote Here}

Day 2 of our Okie-crusted trip was dominated by a visit to the GW Exotic Animal Park near Wynnewood. This was the first day that we really felt the humidity. (We've actually decided that we prefer Phoenix summers to Oklahoma summers.) Addie's poor noggin was sweating after 10 minutes outside. Her hair has never been curlier:


Anyhoo, the park was truly one of a kind. It's mainly a refuge for unwanted exotic animals. You know, those idiots who think a tiger cub is cute until it eats their Maltese. And you get disturbingly close to the wildlife:



This particular guy was enjoying his nap and got a little nasty if you made too much noise:


And here's a little video that gives a little more perspective on how the park is set up, since Mike is moving around a bit, trying to get a tiger to charge the fence. He is successful, but because of the freezing-up nature of the video, you can only see the end of the excitement:

Should you frequent the Wynnewood area of Oklahoma, do check out this place out. There are something like 200 wild cats there, including a couple of Ligers. But I caution against wearing Flame by BK when you go.

Your Okie Roots are Showing

Despite our exotic surname, 2 of the 3 Cupaks have roots in the Great Plain state of Oklahoma (you can't say it without singing, right?). So last Wednesday, we packed up and headed to the formidable Masengale Family Reunion in Sulphur, OK.

Everyone has their own travel woes, so I won't bore you with the 'woke up at 3am, layover in Dallas' part of the story. Miss Thing hasn't been on a plane since she was young enough to sleep through the whole experience, but she did wonderfully. Of course, we had to relax some of our strict pacifier rules.


As everyone who flies out of Phoenix must these days, we flew over the wildfire. My brain clicked in 2 minutes too late to get a good picture, so here's a bad one (that's smoke, not clouds):


We landed in OKC around noon to find my mother already pulling our suitcase and carseat off the carousel. My Aunt Kaye had brought her car JUST for luggage, so she followed my Dad as we drove off to Sonic, Oklahoma's official restaurant. No one really knew where the closest one was, except for Fran, the trusty GPS. Like lemmings, we followed... as she led us in a roundabout circle. Finally it dawned - the closest Sonic was IN the airport. Attempt #2 was more successful, so we dutifully ate our Sonic burgers and drank our frozen lemonades (do try one) before driving 90 minutes southish to Sulphur.


Sulphur is unexpectedly quaint. It's definitely one of those 'can't find it on the map' types of places, but it does have a Walmart and a Sonic (see above), as is proper. There are also several antique homes, including the one we rented in old downtown called the Flower Bluff Mansion. It was built in 1924 by the mayor, which is earlier than 1960, my cutoff date for being unafraid of a house.


We threw down our stuff and attempted to get Addie to take a nap before trapsing off to my 2nd cousin's lake cabin to meet up with the extended fam. Dinner was relatively short, since we were exhausted, so we turned in early. And so ended of the beginning of our trip.