Last summer I decided to put Elias in penguin camp at the zoo. My brothers and I did zoo camp growing up, and I just thought it sounded like fun. He ended up really loving it. He’s been talking all year long about how he wants to do lion camp this summer. I signed him up, and was a bit apprehensive because it would be his first “full day” experience at either a camp or school or whatever. He was nervous about lunch, but I bought him a nice new lunch box and promised I’d pack him something he’d love. I was excited to see how it went…he definitely will need to get used to it considering full day kindergarten starts in a couple months!
Here is my proud lion camper after I picked him up the first day.
I think he liked it!
Seven hours is a long time to be gone so Simon, Caleb and I had a lot of time to fill with fun and other stuff. On Monday I forced them to go to Winco and Costco. Boring mom…I know. We had a lot of fun the other days, though.
On Tuesday, Simon requested a park we had never been to before. I didn’t feel like wandering around the streets until we came across a playground I didn’t previously know existed so I took him to Autumn Ridge Park. I took the boys there all the time when we lived in the condo, but we moved when Simon was 10 months old and he doesn’t remember it at all.
It brought back some fun memories to be back there. As I watched Simon play, though, it really hit me how big the kids are getting.
Elias was never able to navigate the above play structure. Simon had no trouble. At first I was confused. Then I realized that Elias was younger than Simon is when we moved. How time flies!
Caleb enjoyed the park too.
We filled our time with a lot of other fun things. Play dates. Games at home. And of course we visited the zoo ourselves. I let Simon ride the carousel for the first time.
We were lucky enough to bump into Elias’ lion camp group on a zoo tour while we were there. What fun to see him at camp!
We are thankful for the experience of zoo camp and time together!