A Trip to the Zoo

Kids looking at the apes

A great benefit of being part of a group (like a homeschool group) is that many places you might be interested in going on a field trip to offer group discounts. My children (except for Chelsea) could not ever remember going to the zoo and started asking to go after Chelsea just went to the Little Rock Zoo on a 4-H trip. I checked out the website to see how much admission was and it was $10 for adults and $8 for children 12 months and up, but if you go in a group of 15 or more, it is only $5 per person. What a difference! At the last homeschool meeting I asked if anyone was interested in going and we had enough people to get the group discount so I called and made a group reservation for Friday April 8th.

Otter swimming (photo by Alex)

We had a great time! The weather was a beautiful 85 degrees and sunny. The children were all very excited and well behaved. Poor Christian, he thought after we saw the first exhibit that that was all there was and we would have to go back home. Once he realized there were a lot of different exhibits to see he was quite excited (but too stubborn to ride in the stroller....they are for babies you know.)

Alligator (photo by Alex)

Giant Turtles (photo by Alex)

The reptile house was a big hit in my family and we had to look in every tank to find what was in it so we spent a good amount of time in there. The monkeys were another big favorite of all the children. The otters and the penguins provided quite a bit of good entertainment. Alex took over my camera which was good because it was hard to try to take pictures and count heads at the same time. I never even knew he liked to take pictures but he had a great time doing it and wants his own camera for his next birthday. Unfortunately, my zoom does not work on my camera so some of the pictures did not turn out as good as they could have. We uploaded the pictures to Walmart Photo and made a photo book which will arrive next week.

Alex took this picture of Lily sliding in the play area with her cotton candy

Emelia did so great! I carried her in my brand new Ergo Baby Carrier for about 1 1/2. I took her out to feed and change her and she was pretty sweaty so I put the carrier in the stroller and carried her in my arms so she could catch the breeze. When Chelsea got tired of pushing the stroller we switched and she carried the baby while I pushed the double stroller.

Emelia sleeping in her carrier

After about 3 hours we had made it through the zoo and were hot, tired, and hungry (our picnic lunch was in the van) so we decided it was time to head out. Nick was not ready to leave yet because there were 2 things he wanted to see and didn't get to but everyone else was ready to go. I must admit that I was tired and still had a 2 hour drive home. I also am not in as good shape as I should be (trying to use the excuse that I just gave birth a few weeks ago) and my legs are sore. The children asked first thing if we could go back again today but I told them we will have to wait and maybe go back in the fall.

Chelsea, Emelia, Christian, Anthony relaxing in the shade while we were getting ready to go