A Day at the Zoo

On Wednesday Ricci and I took the girls to the zoo. We stayed the night at my parent's house Tuesday night so we could be up and ready when the zoo opened. I've never gotten to the zoo when it first opened before. And I will never go any other time now! It was perfect! It wasn't crowded, it was perfect weather (not too hot yet), and the animals were a lot more active than I have ever seen. I wish I had gotten some pictures of the leopard and the tigers, but I was nursing when we were over in that area and didn't have my camera out. They were super active and came right up to the glass. Kalianna was ecstatic! She even asked if she could go swimming with the tigers. Ummm....no.

She loved seeing all the animals, and remembered many of them from when my parents took her. She would ask for the next one, as we walked through the park, naming each animal we saw and making their corresponding noise. Magdalyn slept through much of the trip, not that we were expecting anything else. But thankfully it was cool enough I didn't have to worry much about her getting too hot.

Kalianna wanted to see the elephants first. They are a favorite of hers. After looking at the elephants she wanted to go see the big elephant statue that shoots water. Well it sneezed right as she got up to it, scaring the crap out of the poor girl. She jumped so high! After that, she didn't want to go near any of the animal statues. Not even the dinosaurs, which she normally loves. Dumb elephant almost gave the poor girl a heart attack!

When we first got to the zoo and walked passed the merry-go-round, Kalianna ran right up to it and kept saying she wanted to ride the animals. It hadn't opened yet, so I tried explaining this to her. She didn't understand, so I finally had to tell her it was broken and we continued to walk around. When we were almost done and started walking back toward the entrance, Kalianna could see the merry-go-round going from the bottom of the hill. She squealed, "It working!" and took off running for it. She even squeezed passed the people waiting in line and was just about to sneak her way onto the ride when I caught up. I reached over the railing and had to pull her back. It was pretty funny! She was so excited and so sweet about it, asking "pweeze!" that I gave in and bought her a ticket. She picked the elephant to ride on. Once I set her on the elephant's back, the look of pure joy on her face was priceless. Huge grin from ear to ear! I joked with Ricci afterward that after spending a couple hours looking at real animals, it was the fake ones that brought the biggest smile to her face.

It started getting quite warm and we had seen everything, so we took off around 11:30. Then we picked up some lunch and went to WesTech to eat with Matt and Bryan. Super fun day! I just love summertime!