Thursday, July 23, 2015

Tennessee Safari Park

This week, HG and I struck out on a road trip adventure to the Tennessee Safari Park with the Mattice girls. Brandy claims that this was my grand idea, as long as we took her van, although I swear I don’t remember suggesting it initially. Regardless, we were so excited that the rain clouds that had followed us all the way from Memphis to Alamo miraculously cleared as we pulled into town, we bought eight buckets of feed, and we approached the gates to the safari park.
Well, the ostrich welcoming crew was in full force, and they preyed on the naïve newbies. Man, they were tough and persistent! We quickly learned to roll the windows up when we saw ostriches, but soon we were awestruck by all the other animals that came to the window for food. The kids went wild, and unfortunately, we totally trashed Brandy’s van. After we made two rounds of the drive-thru part, we headed to the petting zoo area and dove into our picnic lunch. A goat hopped up on the table to look for any stray food, and then the girls chased him and his siblings around the goat pin.
After feeding the giraffe some carrots and almost dying of a heat stroke, we loaded back into the car for the trip home (an hour and 40 minutes). Of course, we thought we had earned ice cream cones from Chick-fil-A to round out the hilariously fun day! I am sure I had laughed off all of the calories!
About to enter the drive-thru safari, and the ostriches are READY.CF6C2652Let the screaming begin!CF6C26582015-07-22 10.32.39


CF6C2684CF6C2688CF6C2694Mr. Camel making his approach…CF6C2697He took advantage of the newbies and grabbed that feed bucket right out our hands!CF6C2700CF6C2711CF6C2719And here we go again…CF6C2728Another feed bucket bites the dust!CF6C2730CF6C2770CF6C2796CF6C2803CF6C2823CF6C2836CF6C2841We made our first loop, and as we started our second loop, we passed the entrance. Look at these animals surrounding that poor car!CF6C2846CF6C2872This made me feel better when we passed the camel again and watched him pull the same move on the car in front of us! This time the pig was there to pick up any crumbs.CF6C2906CF6C2911CF6C2925CF6C2935CF6C2955CF6C2978CF6C29832015-07-23 20.33.17CF6C2997CF6C3003CF6C3015A very curious and hungry goat2015-07-22 12.21.082015-07-22 12.31.522015-07-22 12.38.282015-07-22 12.43.16-12015-07-22 12.57.07-12015-07-22 12.58.39-1

Going Away Party for Maren & Sophia

Two of Helen Grace’s SAA classmates are moving away this summer- one to Atlanta and one to Amsterdam. We will miss them so much but are excited for their new adventures. We had a pool party for them at the Caseys’ last week to send them off.

And for the record, HG was a little fish- swimming to and fro in the deep end, playing some mermaid game with Emma and Bella Marie, and living the fab pool life. Such a big girl!

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