Today the only thing on the agenda was to go to the Safari Park. It is a big zoo, but the difference is that the animals are very close. There are just small barriers seperating some of the animals and others there are no barriers at all. You can feed the giraffes and feed the baby animals (tigers and bears, etc..). Almost everyone that I have talked to said it was a great experience. Let's just say that for us it was Not. We started the day by deciding the BaBa needed to stay at the hotel b/c he is sick. It is just sinus and allergy junk, but all the drainage is giving him a sore throat and keeping him up at night. So it was decided that Mark would stay at the hotel and rest while Konnor and I ventured to the Safari Park alone. This being the first time venturing out for any length of time with Konnor by myself. Be Brave Ashley, just Be Brave!!!! It wouldn't be a big deal if I wasn't in a foreign country where I don't speak the language, I don't have my own transportation and people like to just walk up and touch my child.
It started out okay. The guide picked us up and took us to pick up the other family that had gone to the medical exam with us yesterday. Have I mentioned that Konnor doesn't really care to sit for long periods of time? I do not foresee him liking his carseat at all!!! He prefers to be moving around and sitting in a car for a 40 minute drive is not his idea of fun. He did pretty well, b/c the other little girl was very happy and they were entertaining eachother for awhile. After we paid and entered is when I realized that the guide was going to just leave us to do our own thing and come back in like 4 1/2 hours. WHAT?!? Normally this would be preferred for me, but every other thing we have done this whole trip has been guided so I was not prepared for this. It was already like 90 degrees with 100% humidity in the shade. I don't know what the actual temp was, but to say it was hot is a complete understatement. Every person I saw was dripping. Ok, it will be fine. It was decided that we would just stick with the other family. The first thing we did was take the train that circles the park. This really is great, but they put Konnor and I in a different section than the other family which means that we basically turned into the side show. It did go much better than I expected and nobody tried to touch him so that was good. Konnor fussed for a little bit and then finally drifted off to sleep and I was able to take a couple pictures. We then embarked on the walking portion of the park. I did get Konnor laid down in his stroller for a short 20 min nap. It was going well until some lady came up and touched his head b/c she wanted me to straighten him out in his stroller. So then we were up from our all to short nap. At least she was trying to do a nice thing and was not touching his cleft. This was Konnor's first real experience with sitting in his stroller and it did not go well. Let's just say that I had to carry him the entire time while pushing the stroller and feeding him puffs. I am working on growing my 3rd arm as we speak. I will say that had Konnor been older this would have been an awesome place to go. I would never recommend it with a one year old in the scorching heat. Konnor is a very laid back kid, but enough was enough. We were both drenched in sweat, hungry, tired and getting eaten alive by bugs. This is where my Mother taught me if you don't have anything nice to say then don't say anything at all, so I am just going to skip ahead to leaving the park. We did end up calling the guide to pick us up an hour early. At this point Konnor was well past lunch time and nap time and screamed bloody murder the entire 40 minute drive back. We promptly got clean/dry clothes (after a quick hose down), ate and went down for nap.
Our guide came back over later and we finished filling out all the paperwork for Konnor's Visa. The rest of the night was pretty uneventful. Just bath and playing. Konnor has started sleeping till between 12-2 am and then waking up and laying in bed with us the rest of the night. He is still pretty restless, but he seems to like seeing us as soon as he wakes up b/c he starts smiling right away like he wasn't sure we would still be there. This kid is so great I can't even begin to tell you. Here is a brief peek at our adventure at the Safari Park.
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| This was one of the few smiley faces I got while at the park. |
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| Short nap time (first nap in a stroller) |
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| Yes we were this close!!! |
He is such a cutie! I can't wait to meet you all in June. Oh, and remind me to tell you about the lady who took Bella out of my husbands arms in China. I thought there might be an international incident! :)
ReplyDelete--Maryann