A Day at the Zoo

Thinking about the title of this post, I realized that just about any day around here is a day at the zoo.....between laundry, dishes, meals, diapers, red mud, baseball and 4 wild little monkeys, it certainly feels like a zoo!  However, this weekend we spent an afternoon at the real zoo.  It had been 4 years since I had last taken the kids to the Birmingham zoo....just 3 weeks before Matthew was born!

Of course, we began the day at the ballpark (surprise, surprise) with an 8am practice.  The kids and I then drove down to Birmingham to meet Daddy (who had been working the previous 24 hours) and enjoy lunch at one of our favorite non-local restaurants, The Cheesecake Factory.  After filling up on lots of great food and packing a few pieces of cheesecake into the cooler to bring home with us, we headed to the zoo.  Of course, we ended up taking the long way to the zoo because even though between the two of us, we lived in Birmingham for 9 years (and for 2 of those years Ezra drove an ambulance all over the city), we still took the wrong exit followed by a missed turn, but we did make it to the zoo by 2pm.  And even though I was concerned we might not have enough time to see everything, we saw all the exhibits and let kids play in the splash pad for about 20 minutes and were ready to head home by 4:30.  We had specifically chosen Memorial Day weekend to take advantage of the free military family admission offered this weekend.

My little monkeys....in the monkey house.

I wanna see too!

The elephant was actually "dancing" to African music.

And quite possibly the best part of the zoo.....

This little man was happy to be out of the stroller (and maybe there was a Daddy behind him tickling his legs).

Despite the heat, we had a great time and it was wonderful to be able to spend the day as a family.  The kids did awesome and it was a wonderful day!  I had 2 little ones sleeping the entire way home.  Maybe one day I will learn to go to the zoo when it is less than 90 degrees and I'm not pregnant.....However, my recent track record doesn't look too promising!