A Wild Adventure!

I have been hearing about a program in Savannah called 'Toddler Tuesday' at Oatland Island Wildlife Center and I have been dying to take the kids to check it out. I heard they did a childrens program then you got to go see all the animals outside and go to the petting zoo on the grounds. It has been way too hot so I have been putting it off. With Holdyn starting school in less than 2 weeks, I figured we better get on it because the program is only offered in the morning. It was a last minute decision but we woke up Tuesday and it seemed to be cloudy and not AS hot as it has been, so we packed up the kids for our unknown adventure and headed out the door. After a 30 minute drive we arrived to find out that the topic for the day was turtles! We got to see turtle shells, learn about their skeletons, and pet live turtles!

 Pops and Hadley listening to the turtle lesson and then we sang some turtle songs! Hadley was about ready for her nap!

 Holdyn pet the turtle.... with 1 finger! Haha! I was proud he at least was brave and touched it!

 Pops excused himself to go to the restroom so I was in charge of the turtle artwork project. Holdyn had fun gluing his but just wrote his name on it. I helped Hadley glue her legs, head, and skeleton to the turtle then that child went to work like picaso. She colored away!! It was time to finish up and head outside for the next activity. As Pops was walking back down the hall he heard a little girl screaming her head off. He said it sounded like Hadley but Hadley never cries!! He was surprised to find out that it WAS Hadley screaming because her mean mommy had to pry the crayons out of her hands! We might have a little future artist in the family, just like her great grandpa Len, or "PawPaw"!

 We got a map and figured out which route we would head out on. Let me tell you (mostly I will like to tell my wonderful husband!) that this trip would not have been possible without a double stroller!

 We decided to hit the alligator exhibit first. It was one of the coolest things I have ever seen to get to watch baby alligators hatch right in front of your eyes!! See how tiny the little guy is?!

 It was nice that parts of the 'railing' were plexi glass so kids could see the animals and you didn't have to hold them up over the rail to be able to see.

 Speaking of alligators, they found an alligator in our neighborhood pool this week!! Cricke! I will be checking the water next time before we get in!

 Sister was so tired but she stayed awake and was amazed to see all the animals! (Yes she had a full diapie!)

 Here we were looking for the Red Fox. We found 2 of them! Hadley was busy having a snack! The cool thing about Oatland Island is it wasn't like the animals were living in a 'fake' zoo setting. There was no grass cut, no additions, etc. it was animals living in their pure natural environment which was so cool. Also dirt trails would take you to all of the trails to get to each exhibit. It was so nice because they obviously do a great job keeping up the trails because they were VERY stroller friendly and it was very easy to push the stroller (full of 75lbs!) even on uneven dirt trails. They also had the park VERY well marked and it was nice to know exactly which way to go to see what animal. They had tons of directional signs which was a huge help!

 This was the cutest donkey ever! It's like he jumped out of the Shrek movie!

 Bahaha! How cute is this sheep?? What would daddy think if we had a pet sheep?! Hmm....

Pops comment to this cow "Wow that could make a lot of meals!" How horrible but he was HUGE!

We decided at the begining to only do have of the park so we still have to go back to see all of the other animals on the other side of the park! Doing just half was perfect for the kids because they were right about at their limit of loosing interest. We spent an hour in the classroom singing songs, learning about turtles, and doing art project and we spent an hour and a half outside walking around seeing the animals (and remember that was only half of the park!) We ended up leaving there around 1:30 then we headed downtown to 5 Guys for lunch. It was a great day and I am excited to take the kids back to see the rest of the park! They had an awesome time!