Christmas visit in Baton Rouge

Okay, so it's blog catch-up time. I'll only be able to post one tonight though because I'm now reading "Twilight" and it's consuming most of my free time.

So anyway, we'll go back in time to our visit to Baton Rouge. We really had a very nice visit after our struggle to get there. And it helped that it was in the 60's and beautiful while Blacksburg was digging out of 23 inches of snow.

One of highlights of our visit was a trip out to Global Wildlife Adventures (I think that's what it was called). It was about an hour drive to an area in the middle of nowhere. We turned in to the site and had to wait as some deer and zebra moved out of the way for us to get to the parking lot. So weird! We checked in and while we waited, we were able to pet a baby kangaroo named Skippy. So cute! Anyway, we had reserved a "Pinz", basically an off-roading jeep with all open windows so we could explore the land with our guide and feed the animals. We were able to get this close to the animals:

Seriously. That was a camel, by the way. We were able to feed the llamas, donkeys, and giraffes right out of our hands. We also fed the camels, deer, antelope, zebras, rhea (ostrich-like animals), buffalo, and cattle.

Blythe loved every second of it and loved feeding all of the animals. Ethan, however, was a bit scared and didn't feed any animals until the end when he finally warmed up to the giraffes.

Here we all are in our Pinz:

What a neat experience!

Besides our day out with the animals, we also had fun with the fireworks Peep bought and the hayride he set up. And I personally loved being able to sit outside in the sun for long periods of time without freezing my butt off!

Of course, we also had Christmas gift exchange and so the kids opened LOTS of presents. Most of them we had to ship back, so it'll be like opening them all over again when they get here!

The trip back was uneventful (thank goodness!) and other than Ethan being the extreme wiggle worm he is on an airplane, the kids were actually pretty good. We got home literally minutes before our company arrived for Christmas celebrations at our house, which will be my next post (hopefully tomorrow).