August 4: Boulder Ridge Wild Animal Park

Since seeing the advertisement on grkids.com, I've wanted to visit Boulder Ridge Wild Animal Park.  The ad has been up for a while but the park just opened the last weekend of July.  The kids and I really enjoyed the Wild Animal Park!  We went on a beautiful day -- almost a little cool after sweating it out in the humid      90-degree weather we've been having.  The owners have so many unique creatures, and each one was easy to view up close!  We also took a wagon ride around the park looking at more animals.  I learned a good deal about the different animals but am embarrassed to admit I can't even remember all the names of the animals we saw!  The park is home to animals mainly from Africa, Asia, and Russia. 

Koen, Tysen, and their friend Ian check out some snakes in the Reptile House.

A tortoise, Tysen, Me, and Brielle.

 

A lemur (also known as a "move it, move it guy" from the Madagascar movie)...one of our favorite animals to watch!



This emu "growled" at Tysen!  Yikes!

Brielle checks out a baby chick.

Tysen gently holds a chick.

Feeding the parakeets:  You can purchase bird feed on a stick and feed the parakeets in the bird sanctuary.  Tysen wanted to do this, but changed his mind as soon as he stepped into the sanctuary and the birds mobbed him!  I helped him hold the stick, but it was still a little intimidating to have all these birds flock to you and swarm around you.  Tysen apparently wanted revenge for being scared...can you see him in the middle of this picture?  His foot is raised because he tried to stomp on the little birds.  Fortunately, he missed, but I still made him leave the bird sanctuary immediately.

July 9: The Zoo!

It was a beautiful day for our whole family to visit John Ball Park Zoo.  It'd been a year since our last visit so the kids didn't remember it much and were excited to go check it out!  As of June, the zoo is home to a HUGE alligator, Big Mike, who weighs over 800 lbs. and is 13 feet long -- impressive to see! 

Koen's favorite thing at the zoo was watching the monkeys, while Ty liked the bears best.  I liked the petting zoo where the kids could pet the goats.  In the reptile house, one of the zoo volunteers had a snake out and Ty and cousin Evan were brave enough to touch it!  I know there are other opportunities at the zoo to hear talks and learn about the animals, but we kept it pretty simple with little kids in tow. 

We were at the zoo just over 2 hours and saw about everything...the perfect amount of time for an outing made up of young kids and their parents.  I'm glad we went in the morning when it was slightly cooler as it was getting pretty hot and sticky as we left.