San Diego Wild Animal Park

Well, the day began just OK. Especially since we didn't get much sleep the night before! The Zoo closed at 6pm, so we left to get some dinner at The Outback Steakhouse. By the time we had decided to go there {we have the hardest time picking restaurants while we're on vacation then finding them}, then order and get our food, it was about 9pm. WAY past our normal eating time. Ok not WAY past, but kinda late for us. Well, we were all so hungry that we had appetizers and ate fast. Then we went to bed with very full tummies! Nathaniel couldn't sleep well and kept complaining of a stomach ache. He wanted to lay down with me, so I finally let him. Only a couple minutes later, he was puking all over. Luckily it wasn't ON the bed, but next to it on the floor! NICE! And housekeeping wasn't much help cleaning it up! {we had to keep asking them each day to try to get the smell out of our room} I felt bad for Nathaniel, poor guy! But he's the type that can puke, then 15 minutes later feel TOTALLY FINE!! Which is what he did, we were stuck cleaning up while he was fast asleep & feeling better! Don't get me wrong, I'm glad he was feeling tons better and able to finally get some sleep, but it was ICKY!! Plus we didn't have anything to clean it up with. We totally had to improvise. Not very easy to do. Thank goodness Ben stepped up and got most of it done for me. I already felt nauseous and the smell made it worse! Enough about that, we woke up a little late but got on our way and had a GREAT day!

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These paintings on the walls were at the entrance of the Wild Animal Park. I think they look awesome! I just love the bright colors! You can't totally tell from this picture, but they're all animals.

I have SOOOOO many pics from here too. But I will save some for scrapbook pages or something. The Wild Animal Park was really neat! I mean, it's similar to the San Diego Zoo, but it has more of an African feel. It's really spread out and so BEAUTIFUL! Bright colors, gorgeous landscaping (lots of endangered plants), and the animals are amazing! Some of the ones we saw here weren't at the Zoo, and some you were able to get much closer to see them better. The park was also starting their later summer hours so we stayed until 9pm. FUN!!! and Tiring!

The petting area was also way cooler than at the zoo. The kids liked the goats and bunnies at the zoo, but at the park, there were DEER to pet!!! We were amazed! It was so COOL!!! They were so sweet & tame. They also knew exactly where the feeding posts were (kinda like a gumball machine but spits out a couple pieces of food for too much money). Ben paid for one handful (I mean maybe 5-6 pieces of deer kibble) to let the kids feed the deer. The kids LOVED that! Ashley was so funny because she ran around talking to EVERYONE!! There was one sweet little deer that only had ONE eye. She just HAD to know what happened. She talked to the gal in the petting area and found out then went around and told EVERYBODY so they would know too! She was cracking us up!

Here was one corner where several deer were all cuddled together!

Ahhh yes, the face painting!
As soon as we walked in and Ashley saw the face painting stations, she was so excited and asked immediately if she could do it too. We told her "maybe later." (my famous words) As it became much much later, we finally let her do it after she threw a big fit while we were deliberating about it. Normally we don't give into any of the kids' "brat-fits" (that's what we call it). But I told Ben that was the ONE thing she was really excited about from the very beginning.

So, here's my PINK TIGER kitty

Once one kid got one, everyone wanted one! So we splurged!

Here's Nathaniel's GECKO

Anson wanted the NAKE (that's how he says snake)
Felicia had to have the BUTTERFLY
Our WILD ANIMALS!!!
Oh my goodness, LOOK what we found!!!

Slushie HEAVEN!!!

Yep, we ALL had one, then saved our cups for the not-so-cheap refill for later!

They were DELICIOUS!!!

Those are some of the highlights of that day!