A Day At The Zoo

Last Wednesday I had planned to take my kids to the zoo.  We had a day off of school last week because of MLK Day, and the weather was supposed to be nice.  A perfect combination for a Zoo Day!  It turned out that 3 of my friend Suzanne's kids came along, and we had a great time!  The weather was, in fact, perfect and the kids were great!  I had a blast watching my kids interact with their friends.  It was a low-key, fun, relaxing day, and I loved every minute of it!

~ The 6 Kiddos looking at the monkeys ~

Allie, Jack, McKenzie, Maddox, Cooper, & Michael

The lions were probably the highlight for most of us.  Cooper has been lovin' the Narnia movies and was so excited to see "Aslan"!  The lion put on quite a show for all of us which included a lot of growling.

The mama lion & the cute little lion cubs were in the exhibit next door to the daddy which kinda concerned some of the kids.  Maddox went on and on about them being separated... he was sure that the mama lion and the daddy lion had had an argument and that the daddy was trying to apologize when he was growling.  :)  

The aviary is the exhibit that we spent the most time at. There were hundreds of birds, and the kids loved feeding them on the seed-sticks that we bought!  Cooper kept catching a bird on his stick and turning it over to look under it.  He began to seem very frustrated then he started to fuss and say, "I keep getting girls!  I want a boy bird!"  When I realized what he was looking for, I could hardly stand up I was laughing so hard.  (Allie was the photographer for this exhibit.)

~ Coop & Me ~

The penguin exhibit was new since the last time that we visited the zoo.

Cooper asked me, "Why are they wearing floaties?"  Again -- I laughed so hard.  The little ID bracelets on their wing (Is that what you call a penguin arm?  The kids thought they might be called flippers.  We need to Google it.) did look like little bitty "floaties".  This is one of the reasons I LOVE having kids!  They say the most wonderful things and bring me so much joy!

~ Buddies ~

The sun was not very cooperative (shadows in the first photo of the 6 of them... now this), but I took the shot when I could.  I didn't want to harass the kids to pose for me all day.  

Allie loves otters.  This river otter is so playful, and she loved watching it through the window!

~ Jack & Maddox ~

Maddox was asking me if they got to come home with us after the zoo.  I was joking with him that I was just going to keep them forever.  He said, "Okay!  That's perfect!  Allie could have McKenzie, Jack could have Michael, and Cooper could have me."  I bet that would last about 24 hours before he would want his wonderful family back... but I would love it!  If I could have 3 more kids, I'd do it today!  Here are the 3 sets of buddies...

And a couple more shots of the little guys...

(They were asking me to take their pictures at this point in our day.)

~ Me & My 3 ~

We literally shut down the zoo.  It closed at 4:00, and we drove away about 4:20.  So, we were some of the last ones on this pathway as we exited.  I thought that it was so pretty - the 6 kids, the path, the trees.

~ the end of a very good day ~