A Trip to the Zoo!

What a FUN day we had yesterday! After breakfast, we loaded up the car and headed to the Fort Worth Zoo (for HALF-PRICE Wednesday!!!) where we met my cousin, Traci, and her little boy, Evan.

The kids were excited to go and were on their best behavior after breakfast as I finished packing up their lunches. I noticed it had gotten very quiet, so as I rounded the corner to check on them, here's what I found:
Two adorable kids patiently waiting together on the step for Mommy to give the cue to load up! Such cuties!!!


We arrived at the zoo and met up with Evan and Traci:



Then, we headed to our first exhibit, the gorillas. Here's Tanner checking them out. He was pointing excitedly at them and making his best monkey noises!



Tori, on the other hand, was quite nervous about the large creatures and wanted to be held the whole time. (She loves to watch animal videos at home, but I think seeing them in person might have been a bit overwhelming for her!)


Here's Tanner again, still mesmerized!


Here's our attempt at a photo of all three kids:

Evan was distracted by Tanner & Tori (he was fascinated with the "big kids!")
Tori was upset about the gorillas and wanted to get the heck outta there!
Tanner was upset because I had just put him in the stroller and he didn't want to leave the gorillas!



So, with all the kids back in the stroller, we headed inside to the indoor gorilla exhibit. Poor Tori was still so scared!



Back outside, we came across the orangutans. They were in a great mood and put on quite a playful show for us! I was so irritated with my slow camera... it took too long to capture the photo and what you see below is just after these two orangutans were KISSING! It was soooo adorable and I missed it!!! Aaaargh!



Here are the stinky (although fun to watch!) flamingos. They are interesting creatures!

And here is Tanner & Tori watching the flamingos while cooling off with a nice refreshment! It was quite humid yesterday!


Hello, Mister Elephant:


Good day, Mister Rhino:


After lunch, we headed to the Texas section of the zoo. The first thing we came upon was the petting zoo with a beautiful little calf laying in his pen. Tanner was thrilled and ran up to him squealing, giggling and pointing, trying to reach inside the pen far enough to touch him. Tori seemed excited about him too and ran up to join her brother. But then, the calf turned his head to look at her and she screamed, ran towards me and threw up her hands for me to pick her up! I took her over to see the rooster and the goat and she clung to me as she fussed nervously. We've gotta get this girl out in the country around some animals, poor scaredy-cat!!!


After the petting zoo, we found a Play Barn, complete with make believe cow milking stations, farm animals on the wall that make noise, and a hay loft that the kids could climb up to. They had a BLAST!


Here they are exploring the different animals on the wall, pushing the sound buttons for the sheep, cow and rooster.



And here they are up in the hay loft looking down at me.... "Look at me, Mommy!"





After our barn adventure, it was time to head home for a nap. Although Tori was scared of some of the animals, we had a great time altogether and I hope we will have many more trips to the zoo throughout the summer!