A Wild Day with Old Neighbors

On Saturday we went to the Wild Animal Park.
We met some of our former neighbors there. Joy and her family moved away 2 1/2 years ago. The kids didn't remember each other at all but they had a great time playing together.
I think the boys were plotting their next move in this picture. Joy and I spent the entire day talking as we walked around the zoo. We both felt like no time had passed since we last saw each other - except for the fact that the kids have really grown and changed!
There was a lot of running around and having fun! Chris joked that we should have just taken the kids to a playground. Later in the day the kids played on the playground at the Wild Animal Park. The kids did take the time to look at the animals and the boys really enjoyed riding the tour vehicles for the Journey into Africa Tour. (Chris and I are pretty sure this tour is much shorter than it was 9 1/2 years ago.)

We saw a lot of beautiful and interesting animals.
We saw lots of elephants including a cute little baby that was born on February 14.

My favorite thing at the Wild Animal Park was feeding the lorikeets. We had tried this at Riverbanks Zoo last summer but the lorikeets weren't that hungry at the end of the day. The lorikeets at the Wild Animal Park were very hungry. In the picture below, Joy has two lorikeets on her arm.

Lydia and I both had a bird land on our heads! Chris missed getting pictures of that. Here is Lydia feeding a lorikeet that landed on my arm.

Look how happy Wesley is about the bird on his arm!

Lydia was so excited to ride the elephant on the carousel.

She also liked petting and feeding the deer.

Wesley enjoyed feeding the deer too.

The kids thought this shoebill stork was rather funny looking.

We enjoyed the Wild Animal Park and we really liked hanging out with friends there but Chris and I like the San Diego Zoo better. We are very grateful that we got to take the kids to both places.

After 8 hours at the Wild Animal Park, Lydia fell asleep in the car right before we went to dinner. Chris held her while she slept soundly through dinner. So, she missed her second dinner of the trip.