Wildwood Animal Park

Today was a fun day because we headed up to Wildwood Animal Park in Minocqua.  Nolan has been obsessing about this all week and could hardly contain his excitement.  We took him once last summer before Livi was born, and he still remembers it.  The first area there is a petting zoo, filled with tons of greedy but adorable goats and many other animals to see and pet.  Nolan particularly liked the baby goats (and so did I!).  

If you bought the pellets, the goats swarmed you, even jumping up on you like a dog.  Eric got cornered by all these gluttonous creatures, but I don't think he minded too much. :)

As we left the petting zoo area, we saw lots of cool animals.  The otters were first, and then the BIG black bears.  As we continued along the path, we found some friendly deer that let us say hello.  

I love the wonder in Livi's face here!  She was so intrigued by this beautiful doe!

After visiting with the deer and feeding them some snacks, we continued up the path to see the zebras, wolves, wallaby, and many smaller animals.  We stopped in the Parakeet Budgie Encounter to have an up close encounter with the birdies.  The kids were both pretty curious about the little birds as they landed on our bird seed sticks to have a snack.  

Look how excited he is!

Next, we continued to the wild cat area, checking out the beautiful HUGE tigers, the mountain lions, and the leopards.  We ended up at the giraffe exhibit and were so excited for the opportunity to feed the giraffes some carrots.  It was really amazing to see the dexterity the giraffes have with their tongues.  They literally wrapped their tongues around each carrots, similarly to how they would wrap it around leaves at the tops of trees in the wild.  Their keeper told us that their tongues are black to help avoid sunburn.  

Our next stop included a visit to the camel.  I don't know what it is, but every time I meet a camel it seems to instantly bond with me and want to look into my eyes and kiss me.  This guy was no exception and pushed his ridiculous camel lips through the fence to try to get to me.  

Livi was such a good sport through all of this.  It was pretty warm and it was during her naptime, but she was so content to enjoy the animals and eventually drifted off to sleep in her stroller.  She's such an easy going baby!  

It was really fun to see Nolan enjoy the animals.  He loves to watch Animal Atlas, an educational animal DVD series that we get from our library.  It was fun to hear him spout facts about all the different animals.  I mean, what 3 year old knows what a capybara is?  Mine does!