A Wild Ride

This month has been jam-packed with tons of beautiful days, fun events, and occasions to celebrate, which means lots of things to post about and no time to do it! I am going to try to catch up, bit by bit.

A couple of weeks ago we met my parents for a fun adventure. When SJ turned 2 back in August, they had told us they wanted to take us to a global wildlife center as her gift. With RL's arrival soon after, then the holidays, we decided to wait til Spring to go. We met them there one day for a picnic lunch before boarding the covered wagon train for our tour.


We stopped to have a chance to feed the animals and were quickly surrounded by a huge variety of hungry deer and some zebras, too. Each person had a cup to scoop up herbivore food to give the animals.


RL on his first "safari"


Did you ever wonder what a zebra's teeth look like?


They actually don't recommend feeding them from the cups because they can be biters. Thankfully this one was friendly (and we made sure we kept our hands away!).


T and the guest of honor!


The lazy camel; he doesn't come to be fed like the rest of the animals. As an aside, the gentle giraffes which usually can be fed and even put their heads inside the wagons were all under lockdown due to a turf war between the dominant male and an up-and-comer who will soon go to live at a zoo. I never knew giraffes would be aggressive, but apparently competing males will fight to the death. We were disappointed not to get to feed them, but witnessing a giraffe fight would have probably put a damper on our fun!


Hook 'em! What a coincidence that T was wearing a UT shirt.


Getting a chance to feed a longhorn


AG, our first little Texan


RL caught a nap along the way


AG and LL were really kind of timid about putting their hands too close to the animals; I think they were afraid they would get bitten or licked. Gran had foreseen this and came prepared, so as we were wrapping up the tour the girls put on plastic gloves and immediately became brave enough to feed the llamas, which AG had been saying she wanted to do when we saw some. They were so excited.


PopPop got a kick out of seeing the girls have fun.


T and LL as we were heading back to the homebase


It was a fun experience for us all, and I hope we can go back someday. Thanks, Gran and PopPop!