Going to the Zoo

Max and Molly made their first trip to the zoo on Tuesday! After not being able to go last year, I was determined to take all the kids there this year. Although the weather forecast looked pretty dicey (the forecast ranging from cloudy with a few sprinkles to rain and thunderstorms all day), we decided to bank on the fact that the meteorologists always seem to be wrong when it counts and go anyway. Dad and Grandma came too, so there were plenty of hands to help with the baby wrangling. We packed up the (seemingly ridiculous amount of) baby gear, applied much sunblock, grabbed the camera, and set off for the zoo!

Max was excited to go for “more ride,” but definitely didn’t want to ride in the stroller with Molly when we got to the zoo! Max is a great walker – he walked for about 2/3 of the zoo visit before we stuck him in the stroller. We visited the butterfly house and the aviary first – Max was impressed by all the butterflies and birds (Molly was getting sleepy and was pretty zoned). After the butterfly house, Molly (who had missed her morning nap) quickly fell asleep in the stroller and slept through at least half of the zoo. We saw lions (but missed the tigers) and bears, oh my! There was a great underwater section of the Arctic exhibit and we got to see a polar bear swimming around in the water. Since part of his pool had an underwater observation walkway, we got to see the bear as he swam right over our heads. Polar bears really are huge! I think Max’s favorite animals were the cicadas that Mom found beside the path and the kangaroos – he was adamant that the kangaroos were really giant bunnies and it took us a while to convince him otherwise.

The zoo had a really great playground, but by the time we got to it everyone was tired and it was getting late, so we’ll have to save that for next time. We drove home and finished off our big day out by going back to Grandma and Grandpa’s for pizza bread and ice cream. Yum! I suppose it was just as well that I couldn’t take Max to the zoo last summer – I think he would have been too little to enjoy it very much. I think he had a good time on his first zoo outing, but I bet he’ll enjoy it even more next year! I suspect that his favorite part of the day was eating ice cream at Grandma and Grandpa’s house.