What's Better than the Zoo?

 The last couple of days have been our weekend. With KC working retail, we usually have him a couple of days during the week, instead of the busy bike selling weekend.

So today was our big day, and what is better than the zoo to kids : )

The boys are at the perfect age for the zoo. We saw so much excitement throughout the day. Their noses as close to the glass as they could get them. I pulled them off of the fence barricades all day long. Tried to keep them from pounding on the glass and keep them quiet when signs were posted.

But with three boys, we were only successful 33.3% of the time. One of the three was constantly climbing, pounding and yelling with excitement.

Here's Emmitt caught red-headed. 

It's hard to get him to stop when he gets the reaction he was looking for.

Lots of fun found throughout the day. One of the animals were hard to miss, because they were everywhere! Peacocks, Audrey's favorite : )

They were wandering the walkways, right along with us and in with many of the other animals.

It really is a beautiful bird.

My favorite has always been the Polar Bears. It's from a childhood memory at the very same zoo, watching them swim under the water. I've always found it to be magical watching such a huge animal swimming so gracefully. I was a little bummed that they didn't feel like swimming today.

I loved watching the kids enjoy the animals all day.

 

Couple of cute things that happened throughout the day.

Castiel loved the pacing Cheetah. Back and forth the Cheetah went, and back and forth Castiel went.

The girls had a little argument over this.

Zoe thought it was black with white stripes, but Audrey thought it was white with black stripes, LOL.

They can never agree on anything. . . . . 

Cameron LOVED the Aviary House. I have to confess, I was too busy ducking to take any photographs. The girls liked to even less than I. Audrey thought a bird targeted her and swooped at her head. Cameron was so excited, he told me all day long how much he loved the birds. I think he loved it because there weren't barriers, we were part of the exhibit  : )

Emmitt had a break through.

Look at the pride on his face. The first grate that he has walked over himself. He has always walked around them in the past. He actually stopped at this one and thought about it, and then just decided he was going to do it. KC missed it. I said "Emmitt show daddy what you just did!" and he went back to walk over it again . . . he got high fives and cheers from the whole family . . . I sure anyone that may have seen us, thought we were nuts.

We didn't head to the zoo until nearly 11am, so we totally destroyed the boys nap time. They did great. Wanted to walk everywhere and didn't slow down all day.

Emmitt even wanted to push Audrey : )

We had to be careful, because we didn't buckle them. They were in and out of that stroller all day. A couple of times Emmitt saw something that he wanted to take a closer look at and he'd launch out of the moving stroller without warning. Only fell on his face once : )

And probably the coolest thing we got to see . . . . actually hear, a roaring Lion right in front of us.

He was so loud. That's something you don't see every day. Emmitt was roaring the rest of the day.

Long day. Fun day.

 Thought it was going to be an early bedtime, but they all got a second wind and made it until 8:30pm.

I love the zoo, and I love that my kids love the zoo  : )