z is for zoo

today we drove out to the fort worth zoo. the weather was amazing today. we can add another first to brandon's little calendar. it's his first trip to the zoo!

and thank goodness no one else in the state of texas is having the same spring break as our school district...otherwise the zoo would have been packed. (eta...grandpa dallas sent a cut out from the newspaper a couple weeks after our trip and the attendance at the zoo reached an all time high. people waited for hours in the parking lot for a spot and then hours to get a entry ticket!)

this was the prettiest zoo i've ever been to. granted, i've only been to a few zoos, but this one sets the bar pretty high! i love the mixture of woods and concrete, the fencing, the animal's habitats. the kids were on overload pretty much from the beginning. especially jared. he just couldn't get enough from each exhibit. it was so funny because they would "call" the animals out by their names..."mr. orangutan!" "mr. hippo!" "mr. giraffe!" i wish i would have gotten it on video because it was hysterical.

here are the kids calling out "mr. rhinocerous!"

my favorite animal was the flamingo.

jared really liked the elephants. they were being silly and spraying dirt and hay on their backs! jared would laugh so hard every time they did it!

and the giraffes...

i loved these binocular thingies. almost every exhibit area had one. and they were all painted to match the animal in the exhibit.

another favorite...the penguins. jared wanted to know if these were the penguins from madagascar! what a goofball!

and what do you know...grandpa dallas found a cute little animal roaming free around the zoo. oh wait! that's lauren!

now my in-laws would harass me if i didn't tell the story about mr. monkey. i have attachment issues. especially when it comes to my kids loveys and their blankies. don't ask. anyway, we brought brandon's lovey with us because it is a monkey. and i thought it would be cute to have pictures of brandon, mr. monkey and the monkeys at the zoo (jared and lauren included). anyway, we went to lunch and after lunch i realized that mr. monkey was missing. we went back to the restaurant and tried to retrace our steps. i begin to realize that mr. monkey is gone, and the chances are slim that we're ever going to see him again. i start crying like a baby. i'm going to blame this on my hormones still acting up, but i was a little cuckoo. and partly because i was upset that i lost the lovey that my mom picked out for him. we did end up enjoying the rest of the zoo once i calmed down (thanks to a 30 minute long conversation with my mother), and on the way out my mother-in-law suggested checking with guest services. i just knew he wouldn't be there. i mean, mr. monkey was brand new and i figured someone would have thought, "great! i don't have to buy a souvenir for my kid now!" on the way out we checked guest services. and what do you know? mr. monkey was safe and sound. i almost cried again, but then i thought my in-laws would think that i was crazy for real and question me being fit to parent at this time! ha ha. now mr. monkey is in time-out and not allowed to go out on any more excursions!

we had a fun time at the zoo today! thanks grammy and grandpa!