Another Day In Paradise

So nearly half way through half term already and the kids have certainly been kept busy so far (note, still seems weird having to write kids on the blog instead of "the boys"!). Anyway yesterday as I was at work the boys were booked into a kids sports club down at the Sporting Village. They seemed to really enjoy their day out and managed to squeeze in swimming, dodgeball, an obstacle course plus loads of craft activities. In fact they did so much that both Josh and Brandon slept in late this morning and have both been flagging a bit today and complaining that their legs are tired.

 

Anyway the title of this blog in no way references what you would consider as paradise in terms of weather, but rather a return to Paradise Wildlife Park courtesy of some cheap tickets from Groupon. I think the two boys are very familiar with Paradise having been there about 4 or 5 times now, but for Holly this was to be her first visit and the little girl probably slept for about 75% of the time we were there.

 

Every time we have been to Paradise Wildlife Park it has always been my face that has joined Joshua and Brandon's in the animal photo head shoot sign (below). However this time there was no room for me as Holly stepped up to take my place making a lovely picture of all 3 kids.



 

Holly, Joshua and Brandon visiting Paradise Wildlife Park.

Brandon was doing his usual by hogging the map of the zoo and navigating and dictating where we went. Needless to say the first stop was of course his favourite - the meerkats. I managed to get this amazing picture of a meerkat which was reaching up into the heat lamp to keep warm.

The meerkat at full stretch to get as close to the heat lamp as possible.

I managed to get some quite impressive close up pictures of the animals during this visit. The boys took a few pictures with my camera and Brandon was gutted that he forgot to take his new camera that he bought himself out of his birthday money.

Is this a bearded zebra or a zebra chowing down on some hay?

Me and Josh thought this camel was being a cool dude standing with one leg propped up on a log.

This poor little reindeer is only 6 years old and has lost an antler already.

A nice close-up picture of a reindeer head.

Just lately I have been showing the boys some YouTube videos of alligators as they are my favourite animal. I have been telling them all about when we went to Gatorland in Florida and saw 14ft gators literally jumping out of water to grab chickens and seeing a zoo keeper putting his head in a gator's mouth etc. Anyway it was funny because I lent over the barrier to take this picture shown below and both boys where panicking that the gator was going to jump up and bite my hand/camera! 

Ready to jump and eat a camera or docile and sleepy?

Joshua was fascinated by the Cheetah's mane on his back and how it wiggled side to side as he prowled up and down.

 

Me, Holly, Joshua and Brandon board the safari tractor trailer for a ride around the park. Tina was on buggy monitoring duty!

Brandon snuggling his little Sis. He loves rubbing his face against her soft head and hair.

We were fortunate enough to catch feeding time for the white tigers, what beasts!

One of the things I noticed about this visit to the zoo which we have never had before is that Joshua was actually reading a lot of the signs around the park. Normally the kids just run around from cage to cage looking at the animals. But this time Josh was making a real good effort to read and learn. Even more impressive is that the boys both wanted to take a pad and pen with them so that they could sit down every now and then and draw some of the animals that they saw.

Joshua knuckling down to draw his tiger.

A great picture of the male lion standing proud.

I managed to get this great shot of Joshua as the male lion prowled past him. Brandon was too slow to get in the picture.

So instead Brandon had this picture done with a female lion just about visible at the top of the rockery.

Joshua and Brandon having a race around the Formula Fun track.

Our extra large lego building with arch doorway.

As always we took the train ride around the dinosaurs and the wolfs (Tina was again on buggy watching duty).

At the end of the day we went back around the zoo to see a few animals which we had missed earlier in the day and due to dodging rain showers. Once of the animals we missed was the otters and fortunately they were out in full force during this visit. The boys absolutely loved them as they appeared to be playing follow the leader (or as Joshua said, maybe kiss chase!!!). Clearly we know what he gets up too at playtime in the school playground. 

Finally a nice picture of the otters out playing and being very noisy.

 

As a final comment for today it has been a while since I wrote about some of those classic comments that kids come out with. Well Joshua had one of those moments today. Clearly we have never explained to him about ear wax. Well sitting in the car on the way there and he is poking around in his ear (as you do), anyway next thing we hear is "uuuurgh yuk, a bogey in my ear!". Brilliant.