Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Our Home Away From Home

Ahhh... The zoo! As comfortable as an old pair of slippers. Getting an annual membership was the best thing we did this year. By the end of April we had already gotten our money worth. And Emily has a crazy affection for animals of all varieties. I know by now everyone is getting sick of seeing pictures from the zoo, but too bad! These are from our latest visit. We always start off near the barnyard animals. Emily loves getting up close and personal with the sheep, horses, and ducks. Duck was actually her 4th word ever. Dada, Mama, Dog, then duck last summer.

And some sweet kisses for our feathered friends.
Not sure where she gets her love of snakes, but it is certainly not from her mother! Before she came around I would skip this exhibit all together. But she LOVES the "nakes."

Now that we are zoo experts we have the schedule down to a science. The newest area, Teton Trek, has a large picnic area out front with a large Geyser. We eat lunch here, then at 1pm they feed the grizzly bears. At 1:30pm is the sea lion show next door and then they feed the polar bears at 2pm. Then we go home. Perfecto!
This trip however we stayed a little longer. May through July the zoo has a special exhibit called "Birds & Bees." It is an open air cage where you can go in and feed the birds. The only animal I like less than snakes is birds, but I sucked it up and took Emily to feed the birds. They give you this stick with bird feed attached and the birds will come and land on your stick and nibble. I still contend the stick should be much longer than 8 inches, but alas. Thank goodness that this is a still picture so you can't tell how bad my hand was shaking. Did I mention I hate birds!
Emily was underwhelmed, especially for the amount of courage it took on my part.
But she did love to swing the sticks around. Needless to say no birds landed on her sticks.
And after 4 hours at the zoo it was a very quiet ride home.
Post afternoon nap we went to see our favorite animals, the 3 horses in our neighborhood.


And that's the life of a stay-at-home mom!