Zoo Trip

For weeks I have been talking about taking Grant to the NC Zoo. It was supposed to happen last weekend. But of course, after a whole week of rainy mornings and sunny afternoons, the day we were supposed to go it just went ahead and rained all day. But Sunday morning, while I was in and out of sleepiness, Husband decided to shake me awake. Literally.

"Hey, are you awake?"

I am now.

"It's supposed to be a nice day. And not too hot. Wanna go to the zoo?"

I was in the shower 5 minutes later. And we actually left on time. That's right. I was beyond excited. It's close to a two hour drive for us, so we actually managed our morning time well for once and we were on the road by 9:00. It was Grant's day (ok, every day is Grant's day but you know what I mean) and as soon as he passed out in the car - belly full of pancakes - we started talking about all the animals we had to show him just in case time became an issue. My ONE request for ME was "Please please please, can I feed the giraffes??" I love me some giraffes. Those and the elephants are my favorites at the zoo.

So the zoo is broken into two different sections - North America & Africa - you basically pick one, start there, and end up at the other one. We started in North America because that's where we remembered starting years ago when it was just the two of us.

Just inside the gate. A little refreshment after the car ride.

Alligators were the first thing that Grant got to see.

And they keep the ducks suspiciously nearby.

This is what amazement looks like. He was staring open-mouthed
most of the day just trying to take it all in.

 A sleepy cougar. There was also another one making his way
around their little habitat area.

 So Grant made sure to wave and say "bye!" to the one walking around.

 You're going to see a lot of my puffy face from here on. It's
not that I've gotten incredibly fat, it's just that my medicine
makes my face look like it's four times it's normal size.

Black bear hiding behind another black bear.

 Trying to take a good picture with an excited toddler is...

...well...

...impossible.

Bison. Or buffalo. Whatever. The woman next to me asked her
husband "Which are bigger: bison or buffalo?" he told her that
he thought bison were bigger. Hahahaha!

Grant love the bison!

Sleeping grizzly bear. There were a lot of sleeping animals that day.

They had a dinosaur exhibit. So we definitely had to see that!

The dinosaurs actually moved and made noise, it was pretty cool.

I was lucky enough to catch the look on Grant's face
the first time he heard one of the dinosaurs make noise.

Grant got into a habit of waving "bye" to the exhibits.

Having a good time :)

Roooar!

 A TRUUUUCK!!

Gorilla.

Antelope.

Elephant! Or "efrants" which is much cuter.

Watching the "efrants".

One of us says "Grant, what does an elephant say?" then he would
throw his arm up and say "BOOM!"

My tiny helicopter pilot.

My favorite animal-only picture of the day. Look at those eyes.
I heart elephants :)

Fighting (or playful?) giraffes.

Well mannered giraffes.

Typically I'm not a fan of anything in the horse family. But zebras
are ok. As long as they don't get near me.

So I'll bet you're wondering if I forgot post the pictures of me victoriously feeding giraffes. I didn't forget. I just don't have any. Because in my excitement I didn't read past "hey folks you can feed the giraffes now" on their website. The giraffe deck closed at 2:00 and we got there somewhere in the neighborhood of 3:30. We should have started in Africa. Because if the sight of a sea lion whizzing by the plexiglass is enough to send Grant into an excited squeal, I can't imagine what getting up close and personal with a giraffe would do. We'll feed them next time. There will definitely be a next time because we had a really great day :)