ZOO

We are zoo people. Unfortunately, there is not a zoo very close to us. The closest one is in Jacksonville, FL! As soon as we moved here, Jessa could not wait for her Daddy to "find us a new zoo." The kids were thrilled when he told them that we found one. They really do love the zoo. I mean, I guess all kids love the zoo, don't they? We have been taking them since before they could walk, so they are veterans. They know their animals and so enjoy visiting with them.

My little Zoo Lovers

The first thing we did was ride the train.

THE TRAIN

Spencer could hear the whistle as soon as we got out of the car. It was not an option to wait until later to take the train ride. We headed right up to stand in line for the train. The funny part was that we could see the back sides of all of the exhibits. We had a great view of the rhinos and elephants and giraffes. Observant Jessa noticed that the giraffe "barn" had a special door.

Jessa said, "That's one tall door."

Next we ate lunch. David got somewhat frustrated that we had driven 2 hours, spent $50, and after an hour there, all we had done was ride the train and order food. Jessa and I were sad to be in Florida where there is no Coke, only Pepsi, but we managed. We got a pager to tell us when our lunch was ready. The kids cracked me up watching and waiting.

Hurry up, LUNCH!!

After lunch, the kids headed straight for the carousel and playground. OK, so it was close to 2 hours before we actually saw an animal. . . But like I told David at the time, it is all about them, so we just went with the flow.

Silly Daddy poses with J and S on the carousel!!

Also in the kids area was a small petting zoo for goats. Finally, animals! I may have mentioned this before, but Jessa has a deep love of goats. For some reason, every petting zoo area has goats. And we have been to our fair shre of petting zoos. She loves to feed them and brush them. She talks to them and hugs them. She is truly a goat gal.

Jessa with Sally

(all goats regardless of gender are Sally).

I am not crazy about snake areas or reptile houses, but on a hot day, they are usually nice and cool. We saw huge snakes (a 17 foot anaconda - yikes! I always have Harry Potter moments at snake exhibits. I am not ugly like Dudley, but what if someone around me is a parselmouth?) We also saw cute little tree frogs with big red eyes. The kids posed with some inspiration from these frogs.

Spencer was not a fan of the strong smells. He comes by this very honestly - I am not a fan of any odor, pleasant or unpleasant. There were moments when Spencer's nose interrupted his fun.

Spencer was so precious all day with a stick playing "air drums" and marching along. He is such a happy boy most of the time.

When we were in an aviary, there were tons of birds all flying and walking free. There were some really unique birds that I had never seen before. At one point, Jessa was looking in an area with several birds. She said, "Look, Momma, a Toucan." At first, I did not see one. But I followed where her eyes were looking and sure enough, a toucan! A lady next to us got so tickled! She did not say, " a bird," she knew what it was. I did say we visit a lot of zoos.

I will say that by the end of our afternoon, we were all hot and tired. I spent some time with Spencer on my back. It was a long day, I guess. . .

BUT one of the last animals we visited ended up being the highlight of our whole day! I mentioned that we saw the giraffes from the train. But they have this awesome giraffe overlook where you can almost touch them. And for a mere $2 you can buy a branch with leaves and actually feed a giraffe. Jessa was all over this. I missed capturing the actual moment where the giraffe ate her leaves because a lady held her daughter up right in my line of sight. Darn it! But Jessa was so tickled - she has always loved giraffes. What a cool opportunity!!

When we called May to tell her about our fun fun day, the first question she asked was, "Well, what animals did you see at the zoo?" And our boy Spencer said, "May, we saw a train!" Bless his heart, he does love trains. Forget the elephants, lions, and giraffes, the zoo had a train!