Today we took our Spokane relatives and Grandpa to the zoo. It was another beautiful day, and although the zoo was crowded, we got to see a lot of animals! Here are the kids having fun at some of the exhibits!
Then, Elias gave Simon some pointers on driving the jeep:
After exploring the cheetahs, we went out to the concert lawn for our picnic, just in time for the bird show. It was pretty warm in the sun, but the kids weren’t complaining. They were having fun! We got to see four birds in the show.
One of the birds we saw was a vulture. The zoo has trained the vulture to accept donations from kids and place them in the donation box. Audrey, Sonya, and Elias all wanted to try this so I just had to get a picture. Elias was pretty nervous about it, and the zoo lady had to pretty much force him close enough. But hand it to the vulture he did!
After handing the donation to the vulture, Elias got a magnet with the vulture’s picture to commemorate the experience. He ran back to show it to Grandpa.
After we were done on the lawn, we went to explore more of Africa. Audrey and Elias were very excited to pet the goats.
By this time, Simon was super tired, and I wanted him to fall asleep in the stroller so that we could go on having fun. I gave him his pacifier thinking it would help him fall asleep. Usually at home, the only time he gets his pacifier anymore is in the crib. I thought that this was an ok exception since I was trying to get him to fall asleep. Simon was fighting sleep, though, and wasn’t having any of it. While we were up on the platform looking down at the gazelles, Audrey informed me that Simon had dropped his pacifier. As I began looking for it, a feeling of dread hit me. That dread was confirmed…Simon threw his pacifier down into the exhibit. I am going to have nightmares about reading news articles about gazelles who choked or died from pacifier obstruction. Don’t judge me too harshly. Every parent who has dealt with pacifiers knows that you can’t really control what your child does with them. But I do have some guilt about the whole experience.
About this time, Elias started saying he was tired and wanted to go home. I couldn’t deal with two whiny kids so we decided to head home for some rest. Both boys fell asleep in the car on the way home. Elias ended up napping for almost two whole hours.
You know you’ve done good if this kid falls asleep in the middle of the day!
We had a blast at the zoo. There’s another one for the books!