Another trip to the zoo

Yes we went to the zoo again.  In fact it was less than a week after the last time.  What can I say, we love the zoo and are trying to get our moneys worth out of the annual membership.  This time we took my niece Olivia with us.  I was a little worried about having two toddlers at the zoo, but Waldo was there to help and they are both pretty well behaved.

We picked Livi up and headed out.

Heading to the Zoo 7-3-2011

Lily was a little specious.

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She got over it pretty quickly.

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Zoo 7-3-2011

Lily showed Livi some of her favorite things.

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We bought two little water spraying fans because we knew how hot it was from the last time we were there. The girls spent the first 45 minutes or so watering the zoo.

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Zoo 7-3-2011

Looking at the prairie dogs.

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He's suspicious.

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"What you looking at, foo?"

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Livi's watering the camel.

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You get the idea.  Lots of water being sprayed at the zoo, very little of it being used to cool anyone off.

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Livi's trying to get the llama to come to the fence so she could water him.

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How fricking sweet is this? They were watching the ant eater, but seriously who cares about the animal, look at those girls.

We tried something we hadn’t done before at the zoo. We went to the bird show. We were sure the girls would have a blast.

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Zoo 7-3-2011

They couldn’t have cared less.

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Waldo and I thought it was awesome!

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This guy wasn't part of the show, but he didn't want to be forgotten. He stood like this for probably 10 minutes. It was really cool.

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We walked through the petting zoo, but only Livi was interested. I think Lily was too tired to care. We stopped at the kangaroos right before the petting zoo and Lily laid down on the ground. When I asked her if she was ok, she told me “I’m very tired”. I wish I had gotten a picture of it.

Zoo 7-3-2011

Next we hit up the rainforest hopping to get cooled off a bit.  We didn’t.

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A porcupine. They are uglier than I expected.

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On our way to the tiger Livi sat down to mess with her shoe. Lily thought it was a good idea.

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I did not.

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We stopped by the elephants on the way out.

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We were spent

Livi was asleep before we left the parking lot and Lily was asleep just before we got home. Thankfully they both survived the transfer to the house and stayed asleep for another hour or two.

Then we went swimming at my Aunt’s house.

We had a great day with both girls. They were so cute together and it is one of the biggest reasons that I’m sad that we are moving again (post coming soon). I’m trying to plan another trip to the zoo with Livi and her Mama before we go.

For those of you keeping score, we’ve been to the zoo 7 times this year. I think if we go once more we will have paid for our membership. I’m pretty happy about it.

Statues are for feeding

We went to the zoo again and I swear to you I think Lily’s favorite part is the statues.  Sure she loves seeing all the real animals, but she can touch the statues and feed the statues and climb on them and occasionally kiss them.

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She's feeding the statue in the Orangutan viewing area.

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Hugs

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"You are kidding me!"

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Lily likes to ride the Komodo Dragon. She's fearless.

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Here she is feeding the fierce dragon.

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Chillin in the hippo's mouth

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Riding a rino

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Hugging the elephant baby

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She was just about to kiss the elephant. I have to stop her everytime, sometimes I don't stop her in time. Yuck.

We did visit the real animals too.

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Trying to pet a stingray

Lily got to feed a real animal too. She actually fed the giraffe for the first time.  The two other times she’s tried she made us do it.

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Zoo 6-28-11

There was a lot of saliva involved.

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Trying to get giraffe cooties off with A LOT of hand sanitizer.

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Lily really wanted to see the Tapir. She talked about it till we found it. She even recognized it on a poster before we got to the viewing area.

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Lily and Daddy looking at the zebras

Pretty soon I think I’m going to have to change the name of my blog to Lily’s adventures at the zoo or something.  🙂

Going on a bike ride

A few years ago Waldo bought a really nice bike and he loved riding whenever he could, but since I had no bike and no desire to join him his pleasure rides were few and far between. Then a few weeks ago something changed in me and I decided that going on bike rides would be great family time and a great way to get some much needed exercise into our lives. We looked around at Target and Walmart for bikes and trailers and while they have a wide selection with a range of prices, we decided to spend a little more money and buy from a locally owned bike store. We are so happy that we did. We got a really good deal and I love helping out a local business. We bought my bike, Lily’s trailer and a helmet for Lil and got some maintenance done on Waldo’s bike from the shop, the owner did a little jig as we walked out.

My bike

Before we hooked it up we let Lily sit in the trailer in the living room and since the trailer can be used as a stroller I took her for a little walk around the block so that she’d be comfortable in it.

trailer used as a stroller

We know better then to just throw Lily into something big and new and call it good. She needs time to adjust and get to know something first. Once she was okay with it we hooked the trailer to Waldo’s bike and let Lily watch him go for a ride out in front of the house. She thought this was great.

Waldo's first ride with the trailer

Our new bike trailer

I hadn’t ridden a bike in at least 20 years so I was very scared to get on my bike for the first time, but the old saying is right on, you never forget how to ride a bike. What the saying fails to mention is the balance takes a little practice to get back. The first time I braved my bike I felt so shaky I was shocked that I was staying upright. After a short ride I returned to the house and Waldo (with Lily in the trailer) followed me around the block and the following conversation ensued:
Waldo “see, you are already much less shaky”
me “oh you could see that”
W “you looked like you had Parkinson’s.”  I laughed so hard I nearly fell off my bike.

I am much more comfortable at this point and weather permitting we go on a ride just about every night after dinner. It has been wonderful and the best part is that Lily will tell us at some point during the day “we go on a bike ride together later”. The “together” part is my favorite.

Life doesn’t get better than watching your kid feed a giraffe

A few weeks ago Waldo and I took Lily to the zoo.  The weather had been so nice we had to take advantage of it, and spending time together is always a fun way to spend the day.  Since both of us work from home we are literally together 24/7, you would think that we see enough of each other, but you’d be wrong, we like spending time together.  So we went to the zoo, I knew this story had a point.

We packed up all of our stuff and headed south.  We had a little picnic in the park before we went in to see the ANIMALS.  Lily loves the animals.  We really like going during the off season, because there are so few other people there and it feels like we have the whole place to ourselves.  Well it’s not really that empty, but we usually don’t have to share the exhibits with anyone else.

The Australasian Avery is the fist exhibit that you see and it has these crazy big blue birds. That bird is probably more than half the size of Lily.  They have other birds too, but the blue ones amaze me.

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Then it’s on to the ELEPHANTS!

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The orangutans are next. The two lady orangutans had babies recently. We didn’t get to see any babies though.

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We stopped by and tried to see the tigers, but they were snoozing and kind of hidden. Next we saw the giraffes, then we walked over to the seals and sea lions.

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Our zoo is working on building a new seal and sealion cove. I can’t wait for it to be finished.

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And the flamingos were next. I love their bright color and majesty.

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I can’t remember what this dude is called, but I like his bangs.

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We did a few things that we hadn’t done at the zoo before. We let Lily go and visit the petting zoo and she got to feed the giraffe. Both of which were AWESOME and she loved it all.

Daddy had to pet the goat first.

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The petting zoo was mostly goats and a few standoffish sheep.

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The giraffe feeding took all of two seconds, but Lil really enjoyed it.

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She walked around the zoo picking up sticks so she could feed other animals. Of course we didn’t let her actually feed any other animals, but I thought the idea was really sweet.

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Lily walks around with her hands in her pockets all the time these days. It is so cute.

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We stopped by the little hippo statue so Lil could climb and play.

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We of course saw lots of other animals, but didn’t like too many of the pictures.

We have a tradition of stopping by the snack shop and sharing a ice cream cone. It is one of my favorite parts of our zoo trip.

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Can you tell she’s super sleepy?

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We stopped by and saw the Galapagos tortoise.

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We walked back by and said “Bye” to the elephants and orangutans.

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We had such a great day. I can’t wait to do it again.

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