Out of Africa Wildlife Park

What a day! We went to the Out of Africa Wildlife Preserve to see "lion and tigers and bears, oh my!" The day began with a "safari" in a bus with no windows...

Before we left, I hopped out and snapped a photo of each of the girls.  See those carrots in K's hand?  Those are to feed the giraffe.

Did I mention feeding the giraffe?  K dropped her first carrot as soon as the giraffe got close enough to scare her, so I helped her hold the second one long enough to actually feed that big boy!  Em fed it too but her pic did not come out.

You can see just how close he got.

This guy shows his teeth for treats.  By the way, zebras are black with white stripes, not white with black stripes.  True story.

Can't remember his name, but I think he is just an African antelope.

This giraffe wouldn't leave us alone.  He followed us the entire way and even blocked our exit at the end.  He seems to be quite the character.  He wouldn't eat that boy's carrot but he stuck his entire head in to the driver's seat of the bus searching for the cookies.

Getting a hug from an ostrich.  Our guide got out of the bus once and this was it.  But she jumped back in rather quickly when the antelopes showed up as she was "nervous about getting gored by four foot long sabers", as she put it.  :)

I put this in to remind myself to tell you there were lots of other animals, even if I only photographed the "cool ones".

After our safari ride, which Em had a very hard time sitting through, we walked all over in the heat of the day, which Em did mostly on her own.  In fact, she ran most of the time.  That child has a LOT of energy!

This guy was the first massive predator we met.  They are so impressive, especially this close up!

The girls got to touch a snake...(can't believe they did it!  Good girls!!).  K said she didn't want to but then when the lady came by, she jumped out to touch it.

A serval...small African cat.  Did you know all the wild cats can purr?  Neither did I until today.  I would have learned so much today if I hadn't been in charge of a one minute and thirty second attention span!  Oh, ok, I'll give K two minutes.  :-)

Hyena...

Ok, true story.  This young lady was sleeping in the shade next to the fence.  We watched for a little while as the lions were what K really wanted to see, (plus there was a black leopard in the same vicinity).  At one point, you could see the tail of this lion start to flick back and forth and she flipped over and just started to stare at us.  K was on Daddy's shoulders but Em was walking on her own.

As we walked away, she followed, or shall I say tracked/stalked us down the entirety of her enclosure.  Oh, and it wasn't us as a whole, it was just Em.  When Em stopped, she stopped and when Em walked, she walked, the entire time staring at Em and not taking her eyes off her.  Creepy?  Yes. There is a strange fear that hits your heart when you see a massive predator staring at your kid like this.  Intellectually, yes, I knew there was no way she was getting at us but oddly enough my heart was pounding a little faster anyway.  My brain was telling me this was funny and interesting and my heart was screaming, "Stop looking at my kid like that!" Don't worry, I laughed it off like I wasn't feeling any of that and, honestly, I wasn't going to admit to it...but it was such a strange mix of feelings that I decided to try to explain it.  It is still more funny than creepy but so strange, like my brain and my heart were at utter odds with one another in a hyper-vigilant way.

We got separated on the way back because K wanted to see more lions so she and I went further (and yes, we saw lots more lions) but M and Em headed back the way we came.  He said the lion did the same thing again to them when they went back.  This time, though, a professional photographer saw what was going on, pointed it out to M and asked if he could take a few pictures.  He gave us his business card and we will send him our email and see what he got.

All right, the star of the show and the reason to go...Tiger Splash!!  This was a show with the tigers.

They are still wild animals and are not completely trained so they do what they can as far as getting them to chase toys and attack.  It is pretty cool and I was very impressed and we were even there on a day when "he just wasn't cooperating". We didn't have tigers where we were in Africa but I have read plenty of books and I suddenly totally understand why Africans are so scared of them.  They are HUGE!  Not to mention ferocious and all their other characteristics...and these are the tame ones.

That man is not small, by the way.

In the gift shop...Em has decided tigers are her new best friend, not so much lions anymore.

Ok, one more tiger pic...

We are headed to the Grand Canyon to camp a couple of nights but I hope this keeps you entertained for a while!  God Bless!!

Sedona Hiking

After a long night of rest, we headed out for our first full day in Sedona.

One of our goals on this trip is to get the girls to hike more on their own so we purchased these butterfly nets at the dollar store to make it a little more interesting.

They had a blast...you know, for a few minutes. :-)

K and I got a little too far ahead so we had to wait for Em and Dad to catch up, thus the random pictures of random things...

Oh and the picture of K waiting, not so patiently, on a rock.

When Em caught up, she needed a break...

K and Dad went rock climbing for a little while Em and I waited at the bottom.

Em climbed up onto a rock and then wanted her picture taken because she had climbed too.

After the long hike, we went swimming for an hour and then had lunch and nap.  By the time we got out again, it was 4pm, but we decided on another hike anyway.  This one had much better views.

But we really had to work for them...yes, that is me, with Em on my back, scrambling up rocks on all fours...finally a work out!  :-)

We made our way up Cathedral Rock.

And took in the views for quite a while.

On the first hike we had the girls touching all the different leaves and comparing textures.  On this hike, Em took her own initiative.

Yipee!  All of us together?  What?  K's new thing is not to smile at the camera so even though the pics make it look like she hates it up here, it's just not true...she loves rocks (a girl after Mama's heart) and she really gets into being outside and hiking...until we pull out the camera.  We have decided this is life and we aren't going to get bent out of shape about it...yet.  Besides, we will know tomorrow, when she sees a real tiger perform tricks.

Em was cracking me up.  She just started kissing me for no apparent reason.

Me and K out on the ridge having a conversation.

Chapel on the Hill...this looks so big and beautiful...it is tiny.  The house across the street is bigger.  But beautiful, yes.  The girls were done when we got here so we didn't go inside.

And with that, we say goodnight to another well-spent day.  God Bless!!