Trip to the zoo

Friday, June 27

The summer started our kind of hot but then settled down and was relatively mild the rest of the summer.  I took the kids to the zoo at the end of June and the weather was perfect!

These are 3 bear cubs that are growing up.  This is the first time I have ever really seen these bears active.  They were moving all around their enclosure.

Our favorite place for a zoo picture!

This is how these girls "strike a pose"!

More statues to pose on

Riding the carousel - The last time we were at the zoo, Kay was very upset that we didn't allow her to ride the carousel, so I let her do it this time.  The older kids weren't interested in riding this time.

This is the Hogle Zoo's newest exhibit - the African Savannah.  It is still partly under construction, but they have the lions out on display.  There are two male lions and two female lions and they rotate which ones are on display to the public until they can introduce them to each other and have them all together.  Today the males were out for us to see.

It was pretty cool seeing them up this close.

They just reopened the train ride after making some changes with the new zoo layout.

Zoo field trip

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

MJ and I met Kay's kindergarten class at the zoo today for their field trip.  Usually the field trip is later in the year - like in April or May.  We had been having nice weather up to this point in the season, but this day happened to be a very chilly day.  We didn't end up spending a lot of time there because the girls were just too cold and not enjoying themselves.  I think we left just before lunchtime and the girls ate their sack lunches in the car on the way home.

Kay is in the small window just to the left of the emergency door.  She is in the dark pink coat and white hat, waving her hand.

The elephants were pretty entertaining to watch.

Kay really wanted her picture taken with the peacock.

Trip to the zoo (with DH!)

Saturday, October 19

The weather was nice so we decided to take a morning trip to the zoo.  DH hasn't been there in years and there are some neat new exhibits - especially the polar bear, seals and sea lions.  They've also put in an area that looks like it will be a splash pad in the summer.

These pictures of the bald eagles turned out pretty good despite being taken through a chain link fence.

The polar bear is so cool to watch!  They have these huge glass windows and over and over again he will come up to the window and push off of it with his paws and dive backwards into the water and then turn around and do it again.  It is very entertaining to watch!

One of our favorite places for a picture!  One of these days I will have to find all of our pictures over the years that have been taken at this location and compile them into a slide show to see how much the kids have grown!

Zoo trip

Friday, July 13

Usually when I go to the zoo for a class field trip I end up buying a year membership because with the size of our family you only need to make 2 trips there during the year to make it worth the price.  Since all of the kids were home and Luke and Blondie have not seen the new exhibit, I decided to take the kids there for a visit.  It was a relatively cool morning and we just stayed until lunchtime.  We were able to see the bird show and the new Rocky Shores exhibit which features a polar bear, seals, a sea lion and otters.  It is an awesome new exhibit!  One of these days we'll have to go when DH can come too.

This seal kept swimming right up to the window.  MJ loved it!

I love these big viewing windows!

The bird show is probably my favorite part of the zoo.  I love when the birds swoop overhead like this one!

This polar bear was very entertaining to watch.  It would get in the water and swim over to this rock which was right near the window.  It would push get up on the rock and then push off the window and do a back dive back into the water.  Then it would swim around and repeat the whole thing.  The kids loved watching it!

Kay really wanted to ride the carousel but I managed to talk her into the train ride instead this time.  After much complaining I think she really enjoyed it.