A Day at the Zoo

My little meerkats

We decided to go to the Atlanta Zoo today.  We were blessed with a family membership pass by my grandparents, but we had not been since we had Gunnar.  I was definitely a little apprehensive about going to the zoo in August, but we decided to tough it up and go anyway.  Luckily, there is lots of shade and it was breezy today.  

When we arrived at the zoo, we realized they were having a festival in Grant Park so there was no parking.  We prayed for a great spot and we were blessed with a 2nd row spot in the shade.  Thank you Jesus!  The kids really wanted to ride the train and had been talking about it all morning.  So that is where we went first.  Gunnar was not too sure about all of the noise from the train at first, but he cuddled up on Daddy.

This is a not so great photo of Nathan, but Gunnar looks cute.  Kindle was covering her ears because she didn't like the noise from the train whistle.  

Celeste really loved riding the train.  She loves Thomas the Tank Engine, so this was pretty awesome to her!

This might be my favorite photo of Cooper & Grant together.

We rode the train twice.  Then, we rode the carousel.  Celeste was not too sure about it, but the rest of the kids loved it!

We went to the rock climbing wall next and let Cooper rock climb (the other kids didn't weigh enough).  He did really great.  He made it to the top both times and rang the bell!

He said "I can't look down!"

Now that we did the fun activities, we went to see some animals.  Celeste really wanted to see the elephants, so we went there first.

Cooper wanted to pose with all of the animal pictures that you put your face in.

Next, we went over to see the giraffes.  There was a new baby girl giraffe born on Nathan's birthday this year (July 13).  The zoo asked people to vote for the name of the new baby giraffe for the past month.  There was a ceremony this morning at 10am where they announced the name.  We missed it since we went in the afternoon, but we posed with the sign.

In case you can't read the sign, it says Zuri.

And here she is!

One funny thing that happened while we were over near the baby giraffe. A lady walked up to us and said "oh look at the baby".  We all assumed she was referring to the giraffe, but she was actually talking about Gunnar :)  I had put Gunnar in the water wrap so I could completely cover him up (I don't want to put sunscreen on him).  I always get so many comments when I have him in the wrap.  He does look really sweet!

I did have his sun hat on, but I took it off for the picture.

The kids wanted more photos with the animals that you put your face in.

We went to the reptile house.  I am not a big reptile or amphibian fan, so I could skip this all together.  The kids love it though.  It was feeding time for one of the snakes.  The kids got to watch a snake wrap itself around a mouse.  They were amazed.  We looked at all of the frogs, lizards and turtles too.  I kept steering the kids towards the turtles.  They just seem a little more friendly to me :)  When Nathan was out this morning, a guy told him that one of the rattlesnakes escaped from the zoo.  You can view the article about it here.  I was VERY thankful we didn't not run into her!

Kindle looking at some frogs

Kindle saw lots of kids walking around with stamps on their hands.  Her ballet teacher last year gave the kids a stamp on their hand after each class, so she LOVES stamps!  I told her they were getting stamps from going to see the pandas.  So she asked to go see the pandas next.  And they all got a stamp.

We finished the day by going to see the flamingos.  They were fighting with each other over food.  It was quite a sight to see.

                  

It was a wonderful day for everyone!