First trip to the zoo

We took the kids to the zoo for the first time today, and all had a great time. The twins walked around at first while Sarah rode in the stroller, then Jimmy & Katie wanted to ride so I carried Sarah in the sling. She was so comfy she had an extra little nap before lunchtime while we strolled through the Florida exhibit.

J & K loved seeing the animals, though the ones that were far away or sleeping weren't of much interest. Fortunately this zoo has plenty of up-close exhibits, including the friendly goats at the children's area (we might try going into the petting zoo next visit), a platform where you can feed special crackers to a giraffe (we didn't buy any, but the the giraffe didn't know that so was up close anyway), penguins in a glass enclosure, the underwater windows into the fish & manatee pools, and plenty more.

We stopped for lunch at one of the restaurants there, where Jimmy and Sarah stuffed themselves with chicken nuggets and Katie decided that french fries were the order of the day (she'd had a couple earlier, at snack time). We spent a little more time after lunch in the Asian habitat area, which had some really interesting animals like the Sloth Bear and Bearded Pigs, then headed for home when everyone began looking sleepy. Katie conked out before we even got her strapped into her car seat, and Jimmy wasn't far behind. Sarah was well rested from her extra morning nap, but still dozed a little. We drove around for about an hour to let them sleep and managed to time it just right to be home just a few minutes after they woke up, ready for snacks!

There are several more photos from our day on the April 2009 page.