A Walk on the WIld Side

  

This year we got the whole family season passes to the San Diego Zoo/Wild Animal Park.  Dennis took everyone to the zoo just before Christmas, and we all wanted to go to the Wild Animal Park together.  We were supposed to go on Friday.  Dennis got the day off work and everything.  We got everybody dressed and ready, food packed, medicine packed, etc. (no small task to get 8 people ready) and were about to climb into the car when the nurse called and said that she had orders to come and do a blood draw on Dylan that afternoon.  Aarrgh!  No trip to the Animal Park that day.  Then we had to wait for a shipment of medicine, which thankfully arrived late Friday night.

So Saturday we gave it another try. What a super fun time we had!  The weather threatened rain all day, but never came through on its promises, thankfully.

Turns out our whole family can fit on the back of a full sized rhino.  Maybe we should trade in our Suburban - grass mileage rather than gas mileage.

A monkey and an ape.

"Come back and play."

Enthralled by the elephants

How cute!

He's two.

Caleb's favorite - the white tiger.

Derek was the official videographer.

What's that behind you, Cabes?

My guys.

Adolescent male human...

and adolescent male lion.  

Practically similar.  They both eat and play all day.

My favorite animals were the lions.

No, that's not our Suburban.  It's his - now.

Simba stops a moment to enjoy a break in the clouds.

Even Rhino babies are cute.

Don't want to get too close to this guy.

A pretty view of the park.

A tram ride got us right close to the all the animal action.  Can you pick out Alex?

Licking a fence post - yum.

The Navigator consults his charts.

Cotton Candy = Joy

A sleeping mass of fuzzy polka dots.

 Can you spot (get it?) the giraffes?

That kid spend the whole day running off ...

or stubbornly planting himself wherever he felt like it, leaving Mom and Dad two options: chase or drag.  That got real old real fast.

What are they looking at anyway?

Think Pink.

We spotted and caught rare photos of this strange two horned creature coming through the underbrush.  I think it is a wildebeest - or a close cousin.

Good ol' Nate.

As a special holiday treat, they had a patch of snow there for the kids to sled on.

We even let Dylan try it...

though Mom was even more afraid for him than he was.

There were a lot of great holiday light displays at the park, but we all agreed that the lights at Wildlights at the Living Desert had been much, much better.

At the exit there was some real falling snow - foam actually.  Luke was very impressed.