Summer Zoo Trip

I didn't plan on blogging about every single trip to the zoo, but it's turning out that way. Wednesday, my mom and I took the boys to the zoo. We ended up leaving earlier than we normally do and got there right at 9:00, the only attraction that's open that early is the carousel, everything else (feeding the birds, train, pony rides, etc) doesn't open until 9:30 or 10:00. We got in before all the field trips that were there went in, so it felt like we had the entire zoo to ourselves for a long time. We start every trip out with a ride on the carousel.

We were the only ones on it, so the boys got to pick out any animal they wanted.

I think the boys look so cute when they're wearing their sunglasses.

Normally, the boys don't want to stop very long to look at any animals and they are both interested in different animals. But this time was different, all the animals were out and about (the lions and tigers are normally sleeping, but they were walking around) there was nobody there yet, so we were able to see everything really easily, and we had our new side by side double stroller which made it easier for the boys to see and get in and out of when. I don't know exactly what it was, but the boys were much more interested in seeing the animals this time and actually stopped and really looked at all the animals.

The gorilla exhibit is indoors and normally pretty packed, especially if the gorillas are out, but when we went in, there was only one other family in there. The gorilla kept walking around and then coming right up to the glass and looking at the boys. The kids couldn't stay still when it came up to the glass, they backed up because it was hard to remember there was glass there between us and the gorilla.

The boys loved feeding the giraffes. We got there right when they started at 10, so the giraffes were nice and hungry. The boys always get such a kick out of this.

I love this picture of Carter helping Evan.

All the turtles were out and a lot of them were walking around, the boys love turtles, especially Carter.

There was a sea turtle in the aquarium part that we've never seen before, so Carter was excited about that.

Both boys rode the ponies, there was nobody in front of the boys to do this, so that worked out great. The line is really slow for this since there's only a couple ponies but we've been lucky that we always go before it gets long and have never had more than one or two kids in front of us.

Sometimes Carter skips the ponies so he can ride the train a couple extra times, but this time he was excited to ride the ponies.

We love that the boys can ride the train by themselves, they are pros at this now. They love this little train, it just goes around a small circle twice, but they think it's the best thing ever.

We normally skip the petting zoo part, but we went by this time and the boys loved petting the goats.

I don't know how many times we'll be able to go over the summer when it gets really hot, so I'm glad that we went last week. The boys always have so much fun when we go. The family membership was definitely a great purchase, we have more than got our money's worth.