A Day at the Zoo

With spring football growing ever closer, we decided to take full advantage of everyone being off of school for Good Friday and head to the Dallas Zoo for some family time!

Our first stop was The Savannah and a ride on the monorail. Jake was really excited to ride the "train." :)

Zebras! Before we got to the zoo, Jake said he wanted to see the zebras most.

Next up where the pelicans...and basically there was an entire flock of them camped out on the monorail track, so we had to hang out a few minutes until they all moved. As we drove by, we got extra close to a few!



I don't remember this animals official name, basically an African bobcat.
Antelope

My favorite, chimpanzees!

Jake was LOVING the ride, he would NOT look at the camera AT ALL!

After the ride we walked the Gorilla trail. Jake told me this gorilla was 'eating something,' pretty sure it was a banana.

Next up, the elephants. They wound up being Jake's favorite of the day.

The elephants were very active and Jake was cracking us up talking to them. One elephant was breaking up a stick and eating it. Jake yelled out, "No elephant! Don't eat the stick, that's for squirrels!" No clue where he got that one. Then he kept trying to 'boss' the elephants around... ' go by your mommy! go by your firend!' We hung out by the elephants for a good 15-20 minutes.

We went inside the elephant building and Jake got to touch some elephant tusks, elephant bones, and a rhinocerous horn.

When we finally tore Jake away from the elephants, we moved on to the giraffes.

Checking out the Cheetahs

We packed a picnic lunch and ate it on the deck by the lion's exhibit. We parked the stroller a little bit away and I left the camera with it, so I don't have any pictures of lunch or the lions, but Jake sure thought they were cool.

After lunch, we finally drove away from 'The Savannah' to explore the rest of the zoo.

Our next stop were the penguins. They were a huge hit with Jake last year and he loved them this year as well. It was really crowded when we got to this stop, so we didn't stay very long.

Okay, this is a completely random thought, but seriously, check out the cowlick on my child's head! My poor child and his crazy hair, definitely time for a haircut!

Flamingoes

We stopped and bought some lemonade...this boy LOVES him some lemonade!

Then we made our way to the tigers...

where Stephen almost got 'attacked' :)

Then, in an attempt to be mother of the year, I scratched up Jake's leg getting him out of the stroller to see the tiger. Tears and drama ensued, so alas, we have no tiger picture. Jake was getting a little sleepy, but after getting an boo-boo, he really started fading on us. We were close to the new Koala exhibit so we quickly went it in the direction.

We saw a few monkeys on the way

Then, we got to the koalas, super cute, even though they were sleeping.

We promised Jake a merry-go-round ride before we left.

He picked out a zebra, of course.

He had so much fun! His eyes just lit up each time he came around and saw me waving at him.

After his ride, it was definitely time to head home! He was a sleepy boy, but was insisiting he wanted to stay at the zoo! We had such a fun day and are excited to go back soon. (My mom bought us a zoo membership for the year!)

On a side note (and possibly TMI) Jake had his first time answering the call of nature, in nature, while in the zoo parking lot. We had asked him if he needed to go potty before we left and of course he said no. I'm sure if we were smarter parents, we would have made him go, but we didn't and sure enough the minute we got to the car, the potty dance began. Thankfully, we had parked in basically a wooded lot next to some bushes. We told Jake he was going to get to pee in the grass, which he wanted NOTHING to do with, but after some convincing from Daddy, he got the job done. And of course afterwards, thought it was the most fun thing ever. So I'm not sure where that goes in the baby book, but we can cross it off our list now :)