Unu"zoo"al

My zoo membership expires at the end of this month so I've been trying to squeeze a little more out of it! We went last Saturday with Jessica and Maddie and despite it being the same zoo I've been to over a dozen times - our trip was much different than ever before.

We started out at the botanical gardens which are just gorgeous! I can only imagine how much prettier they are at the height of spring. I figured the girls could run around the paths and not be able to hurt anything. But I didn't anticipate that every few steps there would be some sort of fountain or bowl of water or sprayer that would make them want to be in the water. It was about 40 minutes of trying to get them distracted from the water in between stepping on plants. But the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.

So we packed up and drove over to the actual zoo to look at the animals. Typically Katie is in the stroller or the wagon and we spend most of the time in the aquarium part because she can actually see the animals there. But this time, Katie did a good bit of walking on her own and she and Maddie really seemed to notice the animals. There were shouts of "whoa" and "ooohhh" all day long. This is Katie peering in on the zebras!

Next we were off to the carousel. I still had some safari bucks that came with my membership and it was just enough for the 4 of us to take a ride. Katie has ridden the carousel at the fair (which goes way too fast) and one in Tennessee at a mall - but she really loved this one. She cried when we had to get off but I promised we would ride again another day. I promise that Maddie loved the carousel just as much - this is an excited face.


>The best part of our trip was the encounters with new animals. We usually stop at the flamingos on our way to see the penguins but the penguin "cooler" was malfunctioning so the penguins were moved to another place for a few days. However, on our way out we popped over to say bye to the flamingos and one tiny little white thing caught our eye. It was a baby flamingo! Who knew they were white? It was so cute and the parental flamingos were very protective of their little guy. They squawked at onlookers (people and other flamingos too). We only stared long enough to snap a few pictures so we didn't annoy the mama! (We also saw some bears hitting each other in the face which was pretty funny provided we were on the outside!)

The kangaroos are new to our zoo and they have a Walkabout Trail where you can actually walk along where the kangaroos are not in cages or behind fences. They are right on the path with you but they keep their distance so we kept ours.

Let me just say WOW! I've never been this close to anything other than domesticated animals before. It was feeding time for the giraffes so they were all up at the observation deck and Katie was so excited to see them. She even got brave enough to touch this one's nose!

It was hotter than hot at the zoo so we were gone by 11:30 am but we had managed to pack in so much in so little time. It may be wishful thinking, but I hope to get one more visit in before the end of the month!