The Zoo!

Today we visited the Binder Park Zoo- a bigger, nicer zoo than the one we have in town. We made a whole day trip out of it and had a wonderful time, though we're all very tired now! I took an obscene number of pictures in celebration of the brand new itty bitty camera that we got this week- it's so small that I can easily hold Carolyn on my hip and snap picture after picture with my other hand. It also takes GREAT pictures and takes them exactly when I ask it to (not two seconds later...) I'm so happy with it!

Here we are, in the parking lot- everyone's wearing a sun hat (for the moment...), sunscreen, and we're all ready to go! I love how Caimon looks like she's talking to Carolyn- I'm sure she's telling her how much she loves her watermelon sun hat. :)
There were lots of munchies involved in this excursion- these kids just about ate us out of finger food! It was a great way to keep them entertained and happy despite short naps, warm weather, and confining strollers. :)


Carolyn enjoyed shouting and waving at any animal or bird she could see.
Sometimes they got pretty close! These peacocks were very colorful, and also very friendly- which might have had something to do with the trail of baby finger foods we left them...
Here are Caimon, Rachel, Carolyn, and Aidan, posing for a photo with the big turtle. :)
Carolyn got to go for a ride on the turtle's head- we tried to get a picture of all 4 kids on the turtle... but it didn't work... just too complicated.


Another highlight of the trip (at least for me; I took about 20 pictures :)) was Carolyn's first ride on a carousel- she was a little freaked out when the otter she was sitting on started going up and down... but then she decided it was okay. It will probably be more fun next time we visit.


Probably this was Carolyn's favorite part of the experience. She was surprised by the cold- but very quickly embraced the new experience of Ice Cream. I had to take it away when she started shaking it around


She was less than thrilled when I took it away. It didn't go over well with Rachel either when Heather decided she'd had enough- Rachel threw a huge fit!



After our ice cream adventure, we took a tram ride over to the Wild Africa part of the park- which is mostly a huge enclosure with all kinds of African savanna animals. We had the ladies at the giraffe exhibit take a rare picture of all 8 of us, all together.


I think this was my favorite part- we got to feed the giraffes! They came so close and Carolyn was very interested in them!



Aidan got up close and comfortable with a giraffe tongue!


It was a big day! All the kiddos sacked out in their strollers soon after the giraffes- so they missed the best monkeys- but that's okay, we enjoyed them. :)

Hope you enjoyed this (really) long post. :)