Friday, April 4, 2014

Baby Animal Days - Blogged by JME



 
 
To say our little June Bug is good at making animal sounds would be making an understatement.  This kid can tell you the sound for just about any animal, even throwing in some actions at times (like when doing an elephant, she makes the nose motion with her arm).  When it comes to animals, she is definitely her father's daughter, as they both have a very soft spot reserved in their hearts for them.  Knowing these facts about our little stinker, we knew she would love going to Baby Animal Days this year . . . and we were right.  Go figure!  
 
 


  It was so nice to spend the day as a family, enjoying the beauty of spring and being able to mingle with sweet little farm babies.  Personally, the baby cows were my favorite.  They were surprisingly soft and incredibly affectionate.  It made me sad to think that down the road, those cows were going to be food.  




The worst part was standing in the long line to see the baby bears.  Our little June Bug turns into a little bear when standing in long lines, which made that part hard to enjoy.   Don't get me wrong.  It's fun to see little baby bears but I'm not sure it was worth the wrestle.  If the line was much shorter or moved much faster, it would have been easier.  Also, the baby bears were one animal you couldn't touch, so really, it would have been better to see the baby bears at the zoo where you don't have to wait to see them.
 
June Bug's grandpa (my dad) has a mustache and so now whenever she sees a man with facial hair, he is automatically Bapa.  For example, the mountain man-looking guy in the above right-hand picture . . . yup . . . you guessed it.  Bapa.
 


June Bug was not shy at all when it came to touching the animals.  She was so gentle and soft with each one.  She loved pointing to the ones that were eating and let us know that they were having their breakfast.
 
We decided to be "one of those parents" who keeps their kid on a harness, as our little June Bug is a busy bug and does not like to sit in a stroller for a long period of time and will not let you hold her longer than necessary.  She is very independent and likes to walk by herself.  We found our little monkey pack on amazon.com.  His name is Twinkie (N8's not thrilled with the name, but that is the name it came with.  What do you do?  It's stitched right to him.  Even if we change the name, he's still going to have a tag that says "Twinkie."  First world problems - Sigh!)   It was love at first sight.  June Bug and Twinkie are inseparable and she had no problem wearing him and taking him all over the farm with her. 
 
We also got to meet a baby reindeer.  He has a name but we just called him Sven.  Bet you can't guess where that came from!  (Above-middle right-hand pic)
 



June Bug loved the baby ducks and the baby chicks.  She even gave the baby chick a soft hug (pic on left-hand side).  It was really sweet.  She also loved watching the chickens peck around in their pen.  



Quack . . . Quack! I can't believe how trusting these little birds were.  They just sat in our hands as if we were their mammas. 
 



The choo choo train was also a highlight of our morning.  June Bug has a thing for choo choo trains and had a wonderful time waving at the passengers as they rode by and saying "whooo whooo! Ticka ticka ticka ticka . . . . whooo whooo!"  It's so cute to watch her when she does this.  She has that one down pretty good.  



How can you go to something like this and not enjoy some of the yummy treats there?  We ended up getting some cotton candy.  June Bug was not sure about it at first.  I had to take a few bites of it to convince her it was food.  N8 and I also took a drive up the road a few miles to get some squeaky cheese.  Why go all that way without stopping for some squeaky cheese?
 
Baby Animal Days was such a blast this year.  It was so fun to take our little June Bug up there for the first time and have it be such a great experience.  We'll definitely have to go again!