Zoo Days - - Fun in the Sun!!!

Meet Ethan's buddy Corbin!













Ethan is ready to see the new baby elephant!

And then there's Miss Macie!















Meet the NEW baby Elephant!














For my dad's birthday, him and my mom decided to take a week off for a "stay-cation" as they were calling it! They spent the week doing local things, and decided that they needed to have a day at the zoo with the kids!! We decided to go on a day when I had the least amount of daycare kids. We looked forward to one of our biggest adventures which would be visiting with the new baby elephant that had been born two weeks prior!

The kids had a WONDERFUL time calling my mom and dad "grandma and grandpa" while we explored the many exhibits around the zoo! We saw monkeys, a polar bear, some seals, and the giraffe was even outside for us to view. Of course there was a line for viewing the new baby elephant, and I must say that despite what people say about the attention span of two year olds, they did remarkably well!!!

They were so excited to be spending a day outside, that it didn't matter that about an hour of our trip was to view something that they couldn't understand the importance of! How often do you get to see a real life baby elephant? I think they were mostly excited about their trip, because they knew how excited we were!

The new baby elephant was AMAZINGLY awesome. It really made me cherish those awesome new baby moments that all us mom's get for a short while! He was just so precious. We had to be quiet, and of course, no flash photography while we went inside to view, and they rush you through, that you don't get to have a lot of time with the elephants, but it was still amazing. I look forward to getting to go back. And since we decided it was time to invest in a zoo pass, I should be able to make it more worthwhile for going! Until baby comes anyway!

Ethan of course loves the zoo! Everything is about what sound the animals make these days. He's just so smart it BOGGLES my mind! He is always asking when he can go back to visit the "animals", and of course we're obliged to take him every other week or so, if even for a couple hours!

My parents had SUCH a good time spending the day with Ethan, and their "honorary" grand kids. We packed up a lunch, "grandpa" made up a batch of cookies, and there were juice and snacks to be shared by all. We ate in the big grass field, and when my dad disappeared to go sit in the shade, the kids wondered, "Where'd grandpa go?" - - then they'd run to where he was sitting, so as to make sure that they didn't lose him. We were surprised at ourselves for making it around the zoo on our own two feet, pulling a wagon, carrying a diaper bag, and having two little rambunctious ones on their leashes, but what surprised us more was Ethan's ability to walk the WHOLE zoo without having to take a turn sitting in the wagon. It really was an awesome day, with GREAT weather. We're looking forward to zoo lights with the grandparents this coming winter, after Ethan's baby sister is born! At the end of our trip, grandpa and grandma decided that it would be beneficial to get the kids little mementos of their zoo trips. Each picked out a small stuffed animal, Ethan picked out a Giraffe, Macie a Tiger, and Corbin picked out a Lion! They all climbed into the van, exhausted from their big days, and slept soundly with their new stuffed animals in hand. Too bad we didn't catch that on film!