Monkey Park Daytrip

A week ago, we took a day trip to France to a La Montagne des Singes. It's a monkey park where you can get up close and personal with some monkeys! You can even feed them if you want to!

When I found out about it I knew I wanted to go. Summer was the perfect time. It was a good drive, about 2.5 hours from our house in Germany, and if we had planned it better we would have stayed the night and done some more things locally in that area. Maybe next time. We had such a great time though and it was exciting getting to be a few feet away from these chilled out, free roaming Barbary Macaques.

I especially loved the babies!

Like seriously look at that baby monkey face! Don't you just want to say "awww"

This mama monkey (or dad, not sure we saw a few dads carrying the babies around) was proud to show off this new baby. The workers often shooed the babies away from the visitors to keep the babies safe and to keep the parent monkeys from suddenly freaking out on us. But, we were lucky and  got a few minutes of uninterrupted up close and personal time with this little guy. And let me tell you he was even more precious in person!

They gave you each a handful of popcorn at the entrance so that you could feed the monkeys. The first one Ariana fed she could barely contain her excitement. In the picture below she was covering her mouth trying to stifle her giggles.

Most of the monkeys were lazing around. It was a very hot day. The temp in our car when we got back in read 103! 

 

We got to see some of the younger monkeys playing and a few of them were hanging out together and grooming each other.

But seriously, it was the babies that everyone loved. They were just too cute. This little one was brave and explored the world around him a little. Check out those ears!

We had a great time even though it was almost unbearably hot. The shaded trails were nice and it was worth it to see those babies!

Bad Durkheim Wurstmarkt (and Wine Fest)

The Bad Durkheim Wurstmarkt and Wine Fest is the largest wine festival in the world and it's held every year in the town of Bad Durkheim in Germany. 

We went for a day trip out there on September 8th. It was like Oktoberfest for wine! The glasses of wine they had were huge. And by huge I mean 1/2 a liter, per glass!!

It's a lot like a fair. Rides, games, fun houses (sort of) and of course music and drinking. We went during the day so it was fun for our family but I'm sure at night it really comes to life!

Brats of course!

 Lots of fun kid rides.

 The largest wine barrel in the world. It holds 1.7 million liters of wine!

 Lebkuchenherzen - German gingerbread cookies with phrases on them. These say "Ich liebe Dich" which means I love you!

 My husband took this picture of me, he's pretty proud of it!

 Food and wine!

 These glasses of wine are huge!

 Ariana loves carousels!

 Practicing her shots like Meridia from Brave!

 Fun music.

Rheinland Pfalz is wine country! 

Alligators in the Everglades

We went to the Everglades and took an air boat ride out to see the alligators and other wild life. Check that off our summer bucket list! We had such a great time with my mom and sister and Rich's brother and his wife. We saw 3 alligators which was pretty good. It was so awesome to see them in their natural habitat and a little scary. They were so chill though so it wasn't bad. James, my brother in law is not a fan of alligators but he overcame his fear and had so much fun.

The airboat out into the everglades was so awesome and we went surprisingly fast over the lily pad type plants. I took this picture of James looking out over the side of the boat so you could see how close we actually got to the alligators. Remember these are WILD ANIMALS!

Even the birds and plants and bugs out there were so interesting. I loved the purple gallinules and their babies walking on the lily pads. And the huge dragon flies flying around and hovering above the water was just beautiful. 

I loved the heart on this lily pad.

If you ever watch Gator Boys on Animal Planet you might recognize this guy. We went to Everglades Holiday Park which is the home of the Gator Boys. We saw Chris from the show but the other guys were out on a call I'm sure. He gave us some information about alligators in a little show and did tricks like sticking his hand in the alligators mouth and showing us how fast they close their jaws. He even held his mouth open with his chin WITH NO HANDS! Then Ariana and Rich and James held the baby alligator named Cricket. She was 3 years old and still so little.

Afterwards we all had to try Gator Bites which were mostly like chicken nuggets but it was alligator tail deep fried. The general consensus: not too bad.

From left to right: Jen my sister in law, James my brother in law, Richard, Ariana, Me, Anne my mom, Sarah my sister.