Today is all about exploring the wildlife park down toward Mt. Rainier.
Our kids were immediately drawn to the kids play area.
And no wonder. This playground is awesome.
I absolutely love how this playground is designed to look like it's carved out of Nature.
The kids just wanted to run around and climb.
Checking out the otters' stream.
Exploring with the otters.
We've got another climber on our hands.
An explorer surveys the wilderness.
Taking a lunch break before moving on to the rest of the wildlife park.
A young eagle.
Stopping off at the visitors center.
Now it's time for our zip line adventure.
Evan's ready.
Hailey's ready.
Sorry James, you've got to wait until you're older.
First: instruction time.
Second: practice.
Now we're ready to go for it.
These kids had a blast going through the course.
All of the obstacles were pretty straight forward; nothing crazy hard for them.
First zipline.
Final zipline.
I feel like these kids just behave better when they can run around outside in the fresh air.
This bad eagle was so noisy!
Pretty little snowy owl.
The barn owl was busy eating a mouse.
And the badger kept running around and around his pen.
All of the animals were pretty energetic. Here's the skunk.
The otter on the left kept carrying his fish around.
The porcupine was hiding.
Racoons.
Getting a closer look at the badger.
Down below the river otters were swimming all over the place.
The kids thought they were hilarious.
They kept laughing and chasing the otters as they swam.
Back home Papa always gets popcorn at the zoo so we bought some out here too.
Going to explore the fairy trail.
Keep your eyes open for any fairies.
James found a fairy house!
They were scattered all along the trail.
I love how immersed in the forest we are here.
And then it was time for our tram tour around the wildlife park.
First animals: a herd of bison.
This herd of female elk were hiding in the woods.
This one was the only elk out in the field.
And nearby the females we found the stags: here's one.
And another stag.
Mountain goats just chillin'.
Small herd of deer.
A buck and a bull.
And finally a bighorn sheep as we ended our tour.
We learned that the antlers entirely fall off every year and completely grow out again each season.
They loved the play area so much we had to go back one last time before leaving.
Hailey orchestrated a construction project and enlisted anyone who could lend a hand.
