Katie had such a great day today. The 3 of us went to the zoo and got there at a respectable 9:30 a.m. before the rush of crowds! The first thing we did was look for otters (they weren't out-- this will be a theme, as you'll see!), so we went to the Sea Lions. Katie was so funny. She kept calling out to the sea lions, "Sea Wyons! Sea WY-Ons!!" WIsh we would've had that on video!
We next went to see the penguins, and she thought that was pretty neat.
We were off to see the Effants next. Katie was calling for the Elephants all the way down to the elephant exhibit: "EFFANT... EFFANT!!!" at the top of her lungs-- so cute!!. The elephants were a tad elusive, however. At the viewing area behind the main exhibit, they were tucked into a corner just below us, and you could only see 1 elephant's head. There was a single elephant in the main viewing area, and Katie was very excited about seeing him!
We headed over to the Africa exhibit next. Katie got SO excited to see the hippos ("hi-whoa") and zebras. She also loved seeig her reflection in the viewing glass and couldn't help but give herself a few kisses (mommy tried not to think about the germs!!)
We let Katie out of her spiffy Radio Flyer Wagon to stretch her legs and so she could get a better view of the Zebras. Unfortunately, Katie has 1 speed and was running on the concrete path. As Daddy was reaching down to take her hand, she face planted. I thought she had mostly done a bodycheck with the pavement, but no, her forehead did suffer a bit in the fall. Fortunately, it turned out to be a small scrape. With a few hugs and the suggestion to go see more Zebras and the giraffes, Katie felt much better and we went on our merry way.
The giraffes weren't out, which was disapointing, but we did see the tallest (16'3) inside his "cell" munching on some food. It's absolutely amazing how tall he is!
After we finished Africa, we went to see the polar bears, and then we headed out via the Pacific Northwest exhibit. We saw several bears, which is neat, because it seems like the black bears are never out when I'm at the zoo. It was kinda funny leaving through that exhibit. Most people START the zoo by going through there. So, the entire time I was in that exhibit, I felt like a Salmon swimming upstream to spawn. It's a little challenging navigating a wagon through the enclosed areas, but we managed not to run over anyone's toes.
Katie fell asleep in the car on the way home, but fortunately she did it while we still had 25-30 minutes left. She woke up when we got home, and we weren't able to get her down for a nap. That's alright. She had a very nice lunch, and she enjoyed playing inside with Mommy while daddy took a quick cat nap sitting on the couch.
It was SUCH a nice afternoon that, around 3 PM, we all went outside. I tried pulling some weeds, but it didn't take long before my back was aching. I traded jobs with Kevin and ended up aerating about 1/3 of the lawn in the back yard. Katie had such a great time looking for "baby rocks". Kevin found a large earthworm (it must've been 6" long, even before it stretched out) and showed it to Katie. At first she didn't know what to think, but before long she was picking the work up and squealing with delight. She put the worm down for a while and moved on to other things, but after a bit, she came looking for the worm again. "WoRRRRM!!! WOOOOOORM!! WOR-MMMMM!" It was too much. We caught some of it on video (of course, we never catch the first moments when she's most amusing. I'll try to post some video of it.
We were out in the yard nearly 2 hours before my back had had enough. With some difficulty, we managed to get Katie back into the house (I swear she would have slept out there, given the chance). She was SO tired that she took an hour nap on Daddy. Probably would have napped much longer, but by then it was 6 PM.
She had a yummy dinner of Tomato Basil soup with brown rice and some whole wheat toast. Then, she had a fun bath and settled down into the evening routine of picking up toys, reading books, and having her last milk of the night.
She went to bed very well around 8 PM, and except for waking us up at 5 AM Sunday yelling, "DUCKY!!! duckEEEEE!!", she slept great!
Really pleasant day overall!
No comments:
Post a Comment