Kindergarten Field Trip

On May 18th the kindergartners at RJ's school got to go to the Natural Bridge Safari Park. Jared took the day off work and watched Savannah and Zachery so I was able to go with RJ to the Park. It was a fun trip.

The Natural Bridge is about an hour from our house, so we got to ride a school bus. RJ sat with one of his good buddies from his class and they had a blast catching about random stuff.
At the Safari Park you can either drive your car or take a wagon. We of course got a wagon, it was really fun to be so close to the animals. We each were given a large feed bucket to feed the various animals throughout the park. This is the group in front of us. You can see how the animals swarm the wagon begging for food. The first stop was mostly lamas and a few deer.

Here is RJ, excitedly waiting for our turn. Now RJ is usually extremely timid around animals. Especially larger animals. So I kept prepping him, letting him know that the animals would be right there in his face. He kept saying "Yea, I know." "It's OK" "No big deal"

And then we were off to see the Lamas face to face. RJ freaked out! He jumped to the middle of the wagon.

Luckily his teacher was beside us and she helped me out. She talked RJ through it. She showed him how to feed the animals and explained that it tickled. And while he watched her and the kids around us, he calmed down and decided to give it a try.

He did a very good jump. I was a little worried since there was a pesky mean little ostrich by us peeking like crazy into one of the other mother's back each time she turned away from it. Boy did that Ostrich want the food. We decided to stay clear away from the ostrich. I knew if RJ got pecked by the Ostrich, he might not continue.

Saying good bye to the Lamas. Off to see more animals.

Next were the one hump camels. When feeding these guys, you had to be sure to hold tight to your bucket. They were greedy and liked to grab the entire bucket out of your hands if you didn't hold tight.

The buffalo was RJ's favorite animal to feed. Instead of holding out your hand to let the animal lick it clean, you just held your bucket over i't's head and dump some food into it's mouth.

It was fun to be so close to these animals. Not only were we able to feed them, but we could pet them as well. I found it interesting that the antlers on these elk were very soft and warm. I didn't except them to be warm.

Here we have the two hump camels. I was busy watching two emus fighting and didn't even notice that RJ decided to brave it and go to the other side of the wagon and feed the camels. He said they cleaned out most of the bucket and tried to grab it but he held on super tight and won the tug a war battle. We did see serveral camerls with buckets in there mouths from battles they won. We were told that they would chew the buckets like gum and eventually spit them out.

Now who has pet a Zebra before? I was excited to have the opportunity on this trip. That was the highlight for me.

Holding an Ostrich Egg

Outside of the feeding park is a little zoo.

There was an area where you could feed the giraffe but the giraffe wasn't interested in walking over to us, so the kids decided to walk over to it.

Before this trip RJ would have NEVER walked up to any animal on his own, especially a goat with horns sticking it's head out of a fence. After the trip that is just what he did.

I can't wait to go again. It was a fun trip filled with excitement and laughter.