Sunday at Southwick's

Looking for a little excitement over Memorial Day Weekend, I purchased some discounted tickets from the library to Southwick's Wild Animal Farm - about a 30 min ride from our house. Sadie had been once before with Nana, but we decided to check it out too.

We had a lot of fun, and you'd never guess from the photos that Sadie wasn't 100% herself. She had lost her appetite last night and is sluggish. She perked up while we were there, but not her true Sadie-self. And just a note - searching symptoms online is terrifying. Suddenly you think your child has every horrible disease known to man. Awesome.

Southwick's is a great park - a hidden jewel, if you will. It's tucked away in the back roads of Mendon - on the Rhode Island border. It's very clean, with wide, shady trails that snake around to different habitats. They have a wide variety of animals too. I think they only major animal group they were missing were any sort of bears. There were a million species of monkeys and the like. A whole African section with roaming zebra and ostrich. Even a deer forest.

This is one cool photo of a mama monkey loving her baby, and the tiny baby clutching to her - arms and legs wrapped around as she swung and hopped around. Alex said it looked frighteningly familiar to home.

Southwick's is really geared for kids under the age of 7. It even has a kiddie ride area that Sadie beelined for. We bought her a ticket to the moonbounce (yep, she was the kid who refused to exit when the "ride" was over). And she had a collision with a boy who was following her around. I happened to get it on film.

We also fulfilled my life long dream (finally) of taking her on a pony ride. The pony's name was Cherry Pie. At first I had my hand on Sadie's back just in case - until she swatted me away and declared "I do it!". Some great pictures...if only my camera wasn't crappy.

We last visited the petting zoo part - or as it should be called - feed the aggressive goats. I only had 50-cents in change and refused to break a $10 for it. With the only two quarters to my name, I plugged them into the dispenser and was shoved aside by a rude goat - who must have seen "sucker" stamped on my forehead. He wedged himself between me and the dispenser and put this full mouth on the opening where the food comes out. I tried to shove him out of the way, but was a little afraid of fighting back. Reluctantly, I turned the knob and he ate everything before it even saw the light of day. Here's the group of bullies ready to pounce on their next victims. I'm prepared for next time. There will be war.