During Thanksgiving break, we headed to Fort Worth to spend a few hours at the zoo. We went on half-price day so I wasn't sure about the crowds, but since we went later in the day, it was mostly empty! Oh, and it was cold, which probably kept a lot of people away. The cooler temps definitely affected some of the primates so we didn't get to see the Orangutan, Mandrill, or several smaller monkeys. But we did get to see the gorillas up close and personal, so I'd call that a win.
It's always kind of creepy to me how human-like the gorillas are, and when the big one showed us his backside, the kids lost it.
The giraffes, on the other hand, wanted nothing to do with any zoo patrons. Several people were there trying to feed them lettuce, but the giraffes stayed far away. Maybe they just weren't hungry? At least it saved me from having to buy $6 lettuce.
Brooke wanted to be sure to take a picture of the Nubian Ibex to show Daddy :) I love that they think of him while we are out and about.
The giraffes weren't hungry, but the birds sure were! That was a change from our last trip, and the kids were SO happy.
Especially since one of the birds landed on Brookie's feed stick...
We spent a great deal of time in the reptile house where the snakes officially freaked me out. I mean, look at the size of this thing...
After we left the MOLA, we followed the signs to the stingray exhibit. I had read online that morning that this was a new part of the zoo, and we were all anxious to check it out. Well, turns out that you have to pay extra to get in. I hate when they do stuff like this at the zoo. My first reaction was to just turn around and walk away, and that was exactly what we did; But I could see the disappointment on Brooke's face. Obviously, she has to learn to deal with disappointment in her life, but we had been talking it up the whole morning together so I felt bad. I started justifying that since we got in for half price, maybe it was fine to pay extra to go touch the stingrays. I also wasn't sure when we would come back to the zoo since Brooke is normally in school on Wednesday and i don't do the zoo during the summer. I told Brooke my thoughts, but reminded her that she better touch those stingrays after we payed for it or else I was gonna be mad, haha. She assured me that she would :) At first, she was super scared and I could feel myself getting frustrated, but as I put my arm into the water, I understood her trepidation because I was a little nervous as well. I've touched stingrays before, but you had to put her arm pretty far down and there were tons of them just swimming laps in the large pool so it was quite intimidating. She eventually did it, and I was super proud of her! Colby, on the other hand, didn't want his hand anywhere near the water.
She was so proud of herself for having enough courage to try, and in that moment, I knew that we had made the right choice.
We checked out a few more animals before heading home, and the kids especially loved the Texas animal section with all the baby goats.
As closing time neared, the animals started going crazy. I think they could sense that it was almost feeding time because they were pacing back and forth in their habitats.
I also learned that we need more than 4 hours to see everything at the zoo! We were racing past the last few animals, but the kids still wanted to stop and check out their wingspans :)
It was a great outing with my little people!
No comments:
Post a Comment