Zoo take 2

We love that every summer Hogle Zoo has their Military Appreciation Days where we can all get in free. This year, we only took Elle and J.D. because Nathan and Livy had a better offer - they got to go to Wyoming with Grandma and Grandpa. Problem was though, we have barely had 2 days in a row without rain yet this summer, so of course, not 20 minutes into our visit, we get drenched. And I mean - the kind of drenched where the kids are crying, and we are trying not to laugh through the water running down our faces, while we watch the big trucks pump the water off the roads that flooded in a matter of minutes. It was so bad so quickly that we called it a day and went home. This is what we accomplished on our trip:
1: fought for a parking spot amid the tons of other happy free military day goers.
2: picked up our free tickets, winced at what we would have paid, glad that we didn't.
3: walked in the gates, and decided to hit a show that was starting in a couple of minutes.
4: sat down at the show, noticed a worrisome sky.
5: didn't pay attention to the show because we were discussing said worrisome sky.
6: decided not to stay at the show and head for cover just in case those clouds should let loose a little.
7: didn't quite make it to cover when those clouds did let loose, and barely made it to the car before we drowned.
Pretty exciting, huh? Well, we felt bad about jipping the kids a day at the zoo, and, hey, since it was free again the next day, we went back for round 2.


So, here is a summary of "zoo take 2".
In the car on the way up, Elle was VERY excited since she had almost gotten to see the animals the day before, and was telling us all about what she wanted to make sure she got to see this time. Her list was very entertaining - she was happy to get to go see the "snakes, spiders, ladybugs, and turtles" . . . ok. . . . From experience, I knew we'd be able to see snakes, spiders, and turtles - we would just have to brave the horribly stinky building that houses them, but as for the ladybugs, we'd have to work a little harder to see them, but maybe.

So, we fight for a parking spot again, wait in a massive line to get our second set of free tickets, and some bird-type mascot thing shows up to entertain kids in the line. Well, I am already over at the gate with Elle, working on sunscreen (drenched one day, burnt to a crisp the next, you've gotta love the desert!) when I hear poor little J.D. screaming and crying over all the other noise at the zoo entrance. Poor kid was completely terrorized by that bird thing and he wasn't even close to him - he just caught sight of him out of the corner of his eye. After that he was very cautious about everything he saw at the zoo - he would be all scared and cling to us, and once he could tell we were ok, he'd loosen up a bit, but it would start again at the next exhibit we went to. We only got a couple of pictures of him being scared and checking with us to make sure it was ok, but it was pretty much just as cute each time:

It was a pretty fun day, watching J.D. be scared of everything and listening to all the funny things Elle had to say. She kept cracking us up.



First stop - elephants!



Our super close encounter with the rhinoceroses was pretty cool - we usually don't get to see them at all!



The zebras were hilarious - we came over right as they had had enough of people looking at them and were going away, when Elle shouts out, "Hey, zebras, come here for a minute, I want to see you." and, to my surprise - one of them turned around and walked right to us, seriously looking at Elle the whole time, and the other followed, and they both stood there until she said, "thanks!" and hopped down. Crazy!


J.D. points out just how crazy it was that they listened to Elle.


Jake put J.D. up on his shoulders to see the giraffes better, and Elle says, "Hey, lift me up so I can ride on the giraffes!"



From there, on to the big cat exhibit. No lions that day, we couldn't see the tiger, the cheetah was awesome, but it was the snow leopard that was the coolest. Not only was he soooooo fluffy, and snugly, and adorable, but he was laying down right at the glass so the kids got a real up-close look. I guess Elle didn't quite think she was close enough, though - she said, "I want to put my head in that tiger's mouth - like this." (insert cartoon version of a head in a lion's mouth here). We should probably take away that DVD of old Saturday morning cartoons that they like to watch, because where else would that have come from besides Tom and Jerry, Mighty Mouse, or Popeye? ha ha.


We did make it over to that horribly stinky building mentioned earlier where they house all the snakes, spiders, frogs, and things, and both of them seemed to love it all, probably because all the creatures are pretty easy to see and right at eye level, but neither of them seemed to notice the smell, even though I felt like I was going to pass out from holding my breath.



We didn't take many pictures of just the animals, we all know what they look like, but at the primate exhibit, there was this young orangutan that was playing peek-a-boo with a blanket. He kept pulling it down over himself, and popping out, looking right at us - he was really interacting with all the crazy people standing there staring at him - it was pretty cute, and strangely human-like, so we took a picture.



Elle wasn't especially interested in nor impressed by the gorilla, until he started walking towards us, and then she must have just realized how big he really was, because she yelled out, "That monkey has a big butt!!" making everyone around us crack up. She's already pretty good at loudly pointing out big butts, so hearing everyone laugh, I fear has only encouraged her - I may have to quarantine her for a time so as to avoid any further embarrassing moments. :)



After that, we were getting pretty hot and tired, and had decided to make our way home, when we saw a Madagascar exhibit and thought that might be worth checking out, only Elle sees us coming up to another building and stops dead in her tracks. "I don't want to go in there, those places stink!" So I guess she did notice the smell of the other one after all. We did get her in, though, only by dropping the Madagascar name and giving in to shaking our booty to a quick verse of "I like to move it, move it" only to find it wasn't really worth checking out at all, except to see the big box of hissing cockroaches that Elle runs right up to look in and totally freaks out! I tried to take a picture of her by it, because I of course missed the actual freak-out moment, but she wouldn't turn her back on the box to pose for me. Finally she did, and you can see by her expression, she is very uneasy. ha ha. And all this from the one who is extremely fascinated by all things bug - I am always finding roly-poly or "germ" (worm) friends smuggled into the house, and I've even found them stowed away in her belly-button while she was riding her bike!



So, all in all we had a good time and of course, look forward to next year's adventure!