The Wilds

Earlier in the year the Clarks told us about The Wilds, a private, non-profit safari park that offers all kinds of conservation and education programs, one of which is an overnight stay in a yurt! It sounded fun so we were all in. However, like happens so often with David's job, about 2 weeks before we were to go, he found out he had to travel somewhere so for this little excursion, it was just me and the boys tagging along with the Clarks. It was about a 2 1/2 hour drive from our house and we arrived at 6:00pm on a Friday night at the front gate. We were met by two ranger ladies (I guess that's what I'll refer to them as) who drove us up to the campground. 

We got our first glimpse of wild animals!

And our cool yurt!

After we got unpacked we headed over to the tree area and listened to a talk about survival skills in the wild.

We then got to work building a shelter for our family which was no small feat since there were a ton of us.

Somewhere along the building progress, people got unhappy with others' building skills and ideas and we separated into two groups.

McKenna, Ciara, and Noah's...

and the rest of us. Needless to say, neither shelter would have done much for us but our groups were definitely the most entertaining. Even the ranger ladies seemed to find us hilarious! The other families that were there...definitely dry compared to our lively group!

Next on the agenda was an evening hike. It was starting to get a little cold and wet but we still had a great time checking out the beautiful area and learning different things about the environment.

Someone spotted this frog nestled in a tree.

Heidi is always such a character!

Another wildlife sighting!

And check out the thorns on this tree!

At the very end of the hike it started to rain.

The last event of the night was s'mores at the fire pit. We ended up not staying long because of the rain as well as some grumpy and tired people, ha ha!

The yurt was cool but it was a very cold night and we definitely had not prepared for that! Most of us didn't get much sleep due to all the shivering!