FL trip home for Christmas- Part 2 Busch Gardens

Josh's brother Matt and Matt's wife Jayce invited us to go to Busch Gardens with them while we were in Florida. As it turned out, Josh and me had passes to Busch Gardens from our April trip that were still good until Dec 31st so we were able to go for free :) Matt and Jayce have a friend who runs the Jungala (I think that is the right one) animal section. He invited a group of people including us to a behind the scenes look at the tigers!

Luke and Josh looking at tigers



Sitting on Uncle Matt's shoulders



As it turned out, Luke was too young to go (you had to be 5, Brad was home with Grammy and Papa) so Josh took Luke to see the monkeys while Matt, Jayce and me headed behind the scenes. It was pretty neat to see what they do with the tigers and how close you can get to them. Don't worry, even though we had to sign releases, we never were even close to being in danger. Even behind the scenes the tigers are behind fences and gates.

Gate to go into the Tiger Den





How close we were able to get to the tigers



Video, with a warning to stay away from the spray!



After the tiger den, we moved on to the rest of the park, including stopping for lots of kiddie rides for Luke. He flew planes (well he never lifted off actually, but he went around in a plane)



I finally got to ride Shiekra! Since I was pregnant in April, I didn't get to ride it then. It was AWESOME!

Josh and Luke riding a ride.



We had a great time at Busch Gardens and with our family. Luke still talks about the bird that ate Josh's food! A pigeon flew down and actually tried to grab Josh's slice of pizza from him as he walked to the table! Josh was not to happy about it. Good thing we were eating at the buffet so he could just go grab another piece!