Safari Zoo Adventure

This past Sunday, Cody and I took a day trip to the Tennessee Safari Park. It was so much fun! We got to drive through the first part of the tour, which was about two and a half miles of gravel road surrounded by all kinds of animals.. from llamas and deer, to donkeys and ostriches!  For most of the way, we were followed (or chased) by tons of ostriches and emus! They were very greedy and didn't want to let the other animals get any food from us. Though the giant ostriches were really cute, they packed a powerful punch with their huge beaks! I tried to feed one, and he nearly took my finger off! 

Needless to say, and despite their best efforts, they didn't get anymore feed from us on that trip. After a while of not getting any of that feed, the ostriches got angry and started to hiss at and scare off the other animals! 

The second half of the park tour, we got to walk around and pet some of the animals. The petting zoo area was covered in peacocks! Everywhere we looked, there would be several of them just hanging out. They didn't like to be touched so we just tried to sneak up as close as possible and pose for pictures. I caught one of them in the act of trying to attract a lady peacock by displaying his feathers! That little guy was determined to get a girlfriend. 

The sheep and pygmy goats were so excited and eager to be fed.. pushing and head-butting each other out of the way! One little baby goat found a hole in the fence and climbed out to hang out with us! He was the cutest and cuddly-est little thing! 

We also saw a tiny, white newborn goat who had to have been born within the past couple hours before we got there! When we saw him, he was just learning to use his long, gangley legs.

I had so much fun exploring this little zoo! It was the best day trip I've taken in a while. If you live anywhere near it, I highly recommend giving it a visit. Among the animals I mentioned, this zoo also cares for and breeds several endangered and extinct (in the wild) animals. So that's a good reason in itself to give them some support!

Holiday Fun!

I'm back from my little blogging hiatus! Last week was awesome but sooo busy. Cody and I did a little bit of traveling to visit each side of the family for Thanksgiving. Then my brother-and-sister-in-law came down to visit from Nashville. They brought along our adorable little niece, Saffley, and our brand new, tiny nephew! 

Everyone, meet baby Oliver!

My sis-in-law, Cass, just posted the sweetest story of little Oliver's birth. You can see it here - Meet the Hickmans. It's definitely worth a read!

Saffley is growing up so quickly! She's adorable and full of energy! We all decorated the Christmas tree Sunday afternoon and she had fun helping. Though, she may have broken more ornaments than she hung up... Haha :)

Thanksgiving week was so much fun. I can't wait for Christmas! Also, my birthday was Monday. I'm 25!! Woah. It's so strange... I still feel like I'm 18 sometimes. Crazyyy. Cody and I went on a hibachi dinner date last night after work to celebrate. We're going to celebrate more with friends this weekend, so I'll probably be blogging about that later! Yay!