The Zoo

We took the girls for their very first zoo trip this week.  We have taken them to places that could be considered partial zoos, like Silver Springs, Busch Gardens and Homasassa Springs, but this was the first time that we've taken them to a place that is officially called a zoo.

Arin had been asking for several months to go to and we finally had the opportunity to take her.  We had told the girls we were going on a picnic, but didn't tell them where we were going.  Once we pulled into the parking lot, Arin spotted the sign and she was so excited.  She said, "Were you trying to surprise me?"

For the most part the girls loved it.  It was about 95 degrees out, so we were very thankful for the many walkways that were lined with over-hanging trees.  We only stayed about four and a half hours and did not see everything, but we did buy annual passes, so we will be able to see other things on our next visit.

One highlight of the day was feeding the birds.  It took a little patience to find a bird willing to cooperate, but once we did, the girls both got the biggest kick out of this.

The main reason that Arin wanted to go to the zoo was because she had been seeing the commercials for the dinosaur exhibit.  She was so excited to check them out.  That excitement quickly vanished.  It was a small area that we walked around with 20 dinosaurs on display.  Their heads and mouths moved as well as some of their arms, but their feet were stationary.  Some of the dinosaurs were made to scale, so some were quite large.  They also had pre-recorded growling and roaring near every dinosaur.  The girls were scared.  They were both quickly in tears.  Andy touched the dinosaurs to show the girls that they were fake, but they were still trembling.  They were not the only kids scared of the dinosaurs.

Arin took her first roller coaster ride.  She was so excited to get on this ride and even more excited to get off it!  Andy rode with her and said that she was a good sport the first two times around, but the third trip around the track created a meltdown.  She said that she's never going on it again.

I was happy that I had planned ahead of time and packed bathing suits and sun shirts.  There were two water areas, which the kids loved playing in to cool off.

The girls loved the other activities in the kiddie area, like the train, the play land, the flying bananas ride (Arin's very favorite) and the carousel.

We ended our day by checking out the wallabies. The three females had recently become new mamas.  One of the babies was big enough to poke his head out from his mama's pouch.