Safari.

This past week we headed out for a few day vacation filled with a ferry, a safari (oh my!), swimming, clamming, inner-tubing and three (THREE!) birthdays. As usual, I took a lot of pictures to document our fun, so we'll start with our safari adventure.

 

 

Jeremy has been telling me about the Olympic Game Farm for years. I figure, any memory that sticks with someone for over 30 years has got to be a great experience, so we packed up early, made a mad dash for the ferry and after three hours of driving, we were there. And it.was.amazing. The trek started out with Everly's first ferry ride and this magical little girl somehow inspired the company of dolphins nearly the entire way.

The Olympic Game Farm is home to tons and tons of animals who were either born on the farm or were rescued, orphaned, or taken in after being in movies (like Disney). The experience was surreal. The drive around the park takes at least an hour. We set off and the first animals we came to were a little herd of llamas, followed by peacocks and prairie dogs. We fed them all. The kids were in heaven. The next little bend took us to the yaks. YAKS. Oh, the yaks....

Apparently yaks freak me out a little. Especially when they congregate and stick their heads in my car and my kids with no reservations whatsoever in life continue to feed them and get them closer. They may even start laughing maniacally when the yaks gather around the car and prevent us from driving while I'm possibly yelling at everyone and generally having a meltdown. I may have peed a little during this episode. Parker and Everly thought my near death experience was wildly funny.

Next came my favorite. The bears. Oh, these sweet little (GIANT) fuzzy bears. This only encourages my theory that these adorable things are much like the kids' teddy bears and I may need to hug one someday. Someday.We fed them too and because these bears have either lived on the farm or starred in movies, they put on quite a show. They wave, they stand up and wave their arms, they grab their toes and rock back and forth. So, so cute. So, so much better than the yaks.

 

 

Some of the animals are tucked away from us. We can still drive by and get close, but touching is a no-no for the wolves, lions, tigers, and cougars who live there. Honestly, my kids would have climbed over the fence and snuggled with them if we let them. They are fearless.

See?! Fearless. Here's Everly feeding, then deciding she wants a little kiss and a hug from the elk. The 9 foot elk, because that's him bending way over to get some lovin' from the munchkin.

Parks fed every animal who came within 4 feet of our car. He would hang his body out of the car as far as it would go if they didn't come to him (although most did). I swear the animals knew him and made a point of running over when we made our second trip around. I tried to catch a bunch of photos of him, but it's hard when he was virtually running around in the car to make sure he didn't miss anything.

And of course there were about a hundred peacocks. I love peacocks. And bears.