Dallas Zoo

We had some very special visitors this past week!  Aunt Kelly and cousin Reagan came down from Layton, UT to spend a few days with us!  Uncle Lance had to work, so he couldn't join the fun, but we made do the best we could....

 

They got in Monday night and we all went out for some yummy hamburgers on the way home from the airport.  On Tuesday, I had to work and Andrew had some errands and school things to get done, so Kelly and the girls played around the house.  I got home late from work, so instead of cooking dinner, as was the plan, we went out for some yummy Texas bbq!

 

 

I took the rest of the week off, so we had lots of time to have some fun! 

 

Or in the case of the Dallas Zoo trip on Wednesday, not so much fun.... :(

 

We thought that surely the weather would cooperate seeing how it is almost October, but alas, no.  It was BLAZING hot - which put all of us (especially the hugely pregnant lady) on edge.  Add in a couple of skipped naps and almost no animals to be seen and it was largely a disappointment. 

 

 

There were a few fun things to do.  Eve got to go in and touch some goats.  She was mostly fascinated with the goat poop that covered the ground once I explained what it was.  She talked about the goats pooping for a part of the rest of the day.

 

 

Although there were no lions, we did manage to see a tiger!

 

 

Kelly and Reagan were so cheerful and happy despite the heat that I felt bad with how grumpy Eve (and I) were.  But Kelly managed to get Eve to stop crying long enough to sit on the big turtle for a picture. 

 

 

That lasted about 3 minutes until we got inside the lizard/snake building where Eve had a complete meltdown.  She stood in the corner crying.....

 

 

....while we looked at some reptiles!  I swear people probably thought I was trying to steal her with the scene she was causing.  Luckily, no one in their right mind would suspect a large pregnant woman to be taking children. 

 

 

We stayed in that reptile building for probably close to an hour.  We all got cooled off, Eve got some food, then we managed to get her back in the stroller where she promptly crashed.  Success!

 

 

Reagan quickly followed her example.  So we headed over to the food court to replenish our fluids.

 

 

According to the map, we were only halfway done with the zoo at that point, so we shouldered on and headed over to see the large animals of Africa.  LAME!

 

This was about the closest thing we got to an elephant (we did see a live one from a distance, but it was far away and not moving, so I don't know that Eve saw it):

 

 

We made the mistake of waking Eve up at this point because we thought we were coming to the cool animals we'd been telling her about all day.  Like I said, it was a mistake.  She began freaking out immediately, and there were NO animals to distract her with!  Ah!  The bronze elephant statues didn't quite do the job....

 

 

No lions, no bears, no elephants, and (even though we wandered the exhibit for 15 mins looking) no gorillas.  Sigh.

 

But - thank goodness! - we finally came upon the giraffes!  Aunt Kelly got some food for them and she and Reagan shared with Eve.  So here's Eve feeding lettuce to a giraffe:

 

 

She did really well with it and got to feed them several pieces!  I was nervous that it wouldn't go well since earlier in our zoo day we'd attempted pony rides.  Reagan did great but Eve immediately started crying and begging to get down so she never got her ride.  She did much better up close with the giraffe.

 

Besides feeing the giraffes, the other saving point of the day was the merry-go-round we took the girls on on the way out.  Eve had a moment of panic when I first tried to get her on the zebra, but she quickly realized this was fun and enjoyed the rest of the ride. 

 

Reagan's already a pro at the merry-go-round so she knew just what to do!

 

 

Eve now loves to talk about the "merry-goat-round" and how it goes up and down AND spinning.  Super cool!

 

 

We were all completely exhausted by the end of our few hours at the zoo, but only some of us got the luxury of some shut eye on the way home.

 

 

That evening, Andrew had class and Kelly, the girls, and I headed up to our grandma's house for dinner.  We had a fun visit there with some more yummy bbq!  After getting the girls in bed when we got home, we of course stayed up way too late talking, so we were all worn out on Thursday.  Which made for a perfect day to stay home and do nothing!  Almost...