Friday, January 1, 2010

New Year's Eve at Fossil Rim Wildlife Adventure!

Yesterday (Dec. 30), we loaded the family into our RV and headed to Arlington to ring in the new year at Six Flags and meet an adoptive blog family who our daughter, Mattie, is trying to raise money to support their Pass It Forward adoption fund for Abby's Wish.  As we were driving down I-35, we saw a billboard for Fossil Rim Wildlife Adventure Park in Glen Rose, Texas.  We had visited this park when our bio kids were toddlers, so being the spur-of-the-moment adventuresome family that we are, we decided to pull over in Glen Rose, start the generator and sleep in the parking lot of the community center so that we could visit Fossil Rim the morning of the 31st prior to our Six Flags Over Texas outing.

Fossil Rim is a 1700-acre drive-thru wildlife safari featuring a variety of native and African animals , but they wouldn't allow us to drive our RV through the park.  However, we decided to have a guided tour on one of their open air vehicles, which was WAY better than trying to see animals from our RV.  This was a SUPER-FUN treat as we got our own personal tour guide who knew a lot about animals (not quite as much as our animal-loving children though! :-), AND the animals came right up to us to be hand-fed and petted throughout the ranch.  All of the kids loved it, and we're grateful we had the opportunity to do this before our rainy, cold Six Flags outing!

We (Matt, Lorraine and Chrissie) are now sitting in our RV in the parking lot at Six Flags Over Texas where it's raining and 33 degres.  We aren't taking Chrissie out in this weather, so we're watching Barney, reading, coloring, talking, playing, and blogging!   The older kids are bundled in ski clothes enjoying the rides and feeling like we're in Colorado!!!  We have a great view of the rides and lights from the warmth of our RV, so we're quite content in here.  We have our oldest "adopted" children, Emily (16) and Samantha (18), with us, so our other 4 kids are in good hands while enjoying the park.  (Emily and Samantha and their mom, Stephanie, are part of God's ministry in our family.   God wove them intimately into our family about six years ago, and now they live on our ranch where Stephanie teaches our children at the homeschool academy God created for our family as He called us to adoption and orphan rescue ministry.)  Samantha and Emily were our first "adopted" children, even though they're not officially adopted, we view them as family members.  We are blessed beyond measure!

Hoping your family is warm and safe this New Year's Eve, and we wish you a blessed 2010!  Here are some Fossil Rim photos:


The Patterson Party of 9 on the open air vehicle at Fossil Rim.


Chrissie (age 4, Serbia) and Meribeth (age 12, Colombia)


Mommy and Chrissie enjoying the COLD tour!  (My head isn't really that tall, I promise!)


Samantha and Emily Hall, trying to stay warm!


Daddy and his precious princess, Chrissie.  (Chrissie is wearing Mattie's old ski coat, which was HUGE, but WARM!)

The animals ate right out of our hands!

A beautiful chocolate fallow buck.


Parker was taking a photo of this axis buck with his phone as I snapped a digital photo.  The buck wanted to know all about Parker's phone!


Sawyer loved feeding the animals right out of his hand, and at one point
an ostrich tried to steal his glove (not in this photo).


Forgot what type of animal this was, but he was pretty!



This giraffe was so sweet!  He ate from everyone's hand, and he didn't want us to leave.  What good manners he displayed!


This is an antelope bull (I think) who fell in love with Mattie and Meribeth.  He would have climbed into the truck with us had we let him!  What a sweetie!


This guy was literally kissing Sawyer!!!


And another bull who wanted to get in the truck with us!  Parker was trying to keep him from stealing his cup of food!  All of the other animals were whining (literally) when this guy came around.  Apparently he was the big bully who everyone was afraid of!!!


Y'all come back now, ya hear?!?

2 comments:

Mattie Patterson said...

Hey mom! This trip was so fun! The anilmals were amazing and so friendly. Although it was hard to stay warm, it was a wonderful experience!

Anonymous said...

Happy New Year! We love Fossil Rim and the amazing tours they offer. We stayed at their lodge one year and experienced the fun of waking up to the animals right outside.

Your kiddos were brave to endure the cold and wet weather to play at Six Flags. Next time yall are up this way, give us a call. We would love to meet Meribeth and Chrissie.

~Melanie

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