Louisville Zoo Fieldtrip - July 2013

We took a fieldtrip to the Louisville Zoo courtesy of Grammy and Grand-Dad in July. It was a gorgeous day and we all had a fabulous time!

 Miss McKinley is Grand-Dad's girl!

 Missy K and Jackson waved to the elephant...

 and the elephant waved back! :)

 While we were waiting to feed the giraffes we snapped a couple of super cute pictures of Grand-Dad and his girls

  and Grammy with her boy :)

 Some cute kiddo pictures. :)

~

Jackson (almost 3 years old)

 McKinley (5 months old)

 Kennedy (4 1/2 years old) and Reagan (6 years old)

 Feeding the giraffes is always a highlight of visiting the Louisville Zoo. This time we were able to feed the baby. :)

 We had lunch by the splash zone and played a while there too.

 Jackson had such a fabulous time running around and didn't appear to realize there was another child there. Grand-Dad caught some fabulous and pretty funny pictures of him charging through the lines as if he was the only person in sight. 

 Jackson also enjoyed the waterslides. The girls had a great time too they just weren't nearly as funny, excited or as entertaining about this opportunity as Mr. Jackson. 

 We took a break on the playground after visiting some more animals. I thought this picture of Missy K checking whether Grand-Dad was actually asleep or not was pretty cute.

 Missy K decided taking a nap was a good idea

 or maybe just a funny one :)

 Grand-Dad decided Missy K had the right idea lying down and the ground looked more comfortable. Both of these guys were cracking me up with their nap antics on the playground. lol :)

 Grammy indulged our love of the Carousel and Grand-Dad caught some pretty cute picture of Kennedy

 Blowing kisses :)

 Since our visit to the St. Louis Zoo in April, the Gorilla has been one of Reagan's favorite animals. She couldn't wait to see the gorilla exhibit and show. Here she is checking out how she compares to an adult sized gorilla.

 Grand-Dad took this awesome picture

 Grand-Dad also took this picture of my munchkins at the tiger exhibit

Thank you Grammy and Grand-Dad for taking us to the zoo. What a great fieldtrip!

National Zoo

We had such a great day at the National Zoo! The animals could not have been more entertaining! The weather was awesome for the end of November/beginning of December too which always helps with any zoo experience. :) The pandas are obviously at the top of the agenda for any visit to the National Zoo. This particular day they were extremely active and especially fun to watch.

 This was the first time we visited the bird house at the National Zoo, but all the kids enjoyed it especially since we saw/participated in a feeding. Having said that, Jackson is my bird and fish guy. The girls really don't care but he has always been much more interested them. And as you can see this Rhea was interested in Jackson too! :) 

 The cheetahs were also very active and walking around and chirping

The National Zoo has been working on a new elephant enclosure since before we left DC. They have completed one section, which we were able to enjoy, but are continuing their improvements. Since Reagan had a very loose first tooth we learned all about the elephants teeth as well as the care of them from one of the zookeepers.

 We also learned all about elephant poop which is part of the new exhibit. Here Reagan and Jackson are checking out an example of elephant dung and what zookeppers and scientists can learn from it.

Carousel rides appear to have become a part of all our zoo visits :) 

The orangutans at the National Zoo have the freedom to travel to a couple different enclosures by working their way across ropes overhead. We were lucky enough to see a couple of them doing this. They are a lot of fun to watch! It was especially neat since we had just seen the 3-D IMAX film "Born To Be Wild" which included oraguntans the day before. 

 We ran across this little snake on our way out of the zoo. Jackson was by far the most excited about it as the girls aren't quite sure they're snake fans. :)

As you can see we had a great day at the National Zoo! :)