Monday, July 28, 2008

Is this Jurassic Park?

We have had an adventurous day today! Both of the kids are home with me for the next 1 1/2- 2 weeks because their pre-schools/ mothers morning out programs are closed for the break between summer and fall. {What, you don't get that break off of work? Well, me either! Why can't we learn and schedule our vacations accordingly?}

So, I've got all kinds of fun activities lined up because mommy becomes a bit boring and I'm determined not to let Owen quote every line from any Thomas video. He knows so many now and just throws them out { e.g. "Slow down and puff with care!"} whenever and I have to explain to people that he's quoting a Thomas movie... and I'm sure they're thinking he's seen it 100 times... but he just quotes anything!
Anyway, today we ventured out with Cate and her daughter Ellie to Harmony Safari Park. You've never heard of it? Apparently no one has! It's a free range zoo that you drive through. It's about a 25 minute drive from downtown, but not too terribly bad to get there. Free range zoo means that the animals just roam around and are not in cages. "Roam around" means that they come up to your car and eat out of your hand. How can this be? Take a look at these pictures:

This is one of many ostriches. They were our least favorite because of their attacking nature and weird googly eyes. Sorry if you're an ostrich lover.


I honestly can't remember what this was, but this shows you how close they all were. This is Cate petting whatever the animal is. Cate, do you remember? Looks horse-ish, but I know there weren't any horses.And this is Tattoo the zebra. I think he was Owen's favorite. And I was his favorite. We had a big bucket of feed and apparently the animals know this. Is this crazy, or what?Cate said, "Oh look, get the camel over here", so I threw out food and he came running. Then he snuck around to her side! She screamed because of the lovely surprise, but that didn't scare him away. He wouldn't leave and had his WHOLE CAMEL HEAD in the car for a while. This is Cate trying to get him out!

There were turkey, deer, llama, monkeys (in cages), turtles, big ole snakes (appropriately caged), deer with fuzzy antlers (are those just deer? we were calling them reindeer because of the kiddos, but I'm honestly not sure if they are deer or what), bison, buffalo, aligators- the list goes on. And I could post a ton of pictures, but here are the rest of my favorites:

Owen was in awe of the whole experience. I kept hyping up the "zoo" and I know he thought that Barney was going to be there (one of his other favorite videos- I highly recommend), so I hope this met his expectations. He seemed pretty happy! (The cup is full of feed that he never threw out.)

How often do you get to see this?Here's precious little Ellie waving to some animal. Cooper (our babysitter) is in the "way" back with Harris. I'm so glad she came along because she could maintain the whole back 2 rows. She is great!A ram, I think.And a cool buffalo (or bison). Whatever you think it is- I'll go with that.
A llama- which Ellie kept calling "Mama". Some good jokes there.And here's where the title of this post comes from: Baby ostrich eggs waiting to hatch... or is it?Needless to say, we had a really cool time at the safari park. I would recommend it, for sure! Thanks to Cate for telling us about it!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Cute pictures! That looks like so much fun!

Anonymous said...

thank you for something to DO!! i didn't know about that place either!! and don't feel bad about owen quoting movies. luke does it all the time. (what's worse is he will quote me too!!) but he quotes the little rascals movie and there is a part where alfalfa is writing darla a love note, but tells stimey it's a hate note (cause they are gonna deliver it and they can't read) and it says "dear darla, i hate your stinkin guts. you make me want to vomit. you are the scum between my toes..." yeah...gonna have fun explaining that one at preschool!

Anonymous said...

How fun! We went to one of those in Virginia and they said "don't feed the zebras- they will steal your bucket" and I forgot- and a Zebra did indeed grab the entire bucket of feed and take off. What a fun day- how nice to be able to take a sitter for the backseats- I mean- it's not like you could jump out if Harris started crying!

Anonymous said...

is your hubs from hazel green? micah thinks they went to school together.

Anonymous said...

isn't it awesome to find a way to spend the day out of the house yet in the comfort of air conditioning. that looks like a blast...there is one of those somewhere in western georgia that we have been meaning to go to for a couple of years now...maybe your pictures have inspired me to make it happen. my friend went to one in texas and long story short...camel with his WHOLE head in the car equals a broken front windshield when you try to scare him out!! i'm sure the insurance adjuster loved that one!

keep us posted on your adventures while the kids are out of school. my kids' preschool is closed ALL summer (as in until after labor day) so i am always looking for some entertainment.

Anonymous said...

Okay, it sounds cool and all. But I have to know... a friend told me that you have to worry about the animals damaging your car so don't go if you have a nice car. She's never been but has heard about the place. Is that true or should we plan on going?

Thanks!

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