The Dallas Zoo

This morning my good friend Melissa and I loaded our kids up and headed to the Dallas Zoo. Melissa was gracious enough to drive her van so we could all go together. I love it when we get to do that because it means contented kids and grown up conversations for us.

This was the perfect day to be at the zoo. Our temperatures have dropped into the 80's which is pretty much unheard of for this time of year around here!

I thought that the zoo was very nice and I particularly enjoyed the new Africa exhibit that just opened up. The kids loved it all of course! Caed would crawl out of the stroller every time I stopped to try to see the animals.

Sidenote: I have to interject that I took this zoo opportunity to test Caed's ability to see....I'm pretty sure he can.:) I guess I should preface this with the fact that we were told at his two year checkup that his left eye might be nearsighted. We feel it is a bit early/expensive to take him to a Ophthalmologist, but I find myself covering his right eye and asking him what he can see as if I could diagnose him myself. I worry about not taking him. All I can really know is that his right eye must see really well because he could indicate things like "That elephant is picking up sand with his nose, Mommy!"

When we stopped to see the gorilla sitting contentedly by the window, a group of teenage boys were trying to aggravate it by tapping on the glass and etc. After a few minutes of taking this from the boys, the gorilla lunged and slammed his fists against the glass where everyone was observing. That group of boys disbanded screaming along with a lot of other people standing nearby. It certainly gave all of our kids, and me, a bit of fright. Celeste was telling this story to her Daddy tonight at the dinner table!

After walking through much of the zoo we stopped to eat lunch and let the kids splash around in a splash zone to cool off. It was a fun morning. Here are a few pictures. I really like how close we were able to get to some of the animals!