A Trip to the Zoo - Blogged by JME

N8 and I celebrated our 9th anniversary yesterday by taking our little June Bug to the zoo.  It has been a tradition in the past to go to the zoo for our anniversary, but this was the first "official" year that June Bug came along.  

I say "official" because last year she was with us, just not in the same way.

Our little one had a wonderful time.  She saw a giraffe for the first time, aside from the 'Sophie' squeak and chew toy she has. 

 
She also saw some Lions . . .

Tigers . . .

 





 

And her very favorite . . . Bears!!!

 

She has a stuffed bear at home and a couple of books with pictures of bears.  She recognized the word when we were showing her the bears.  She became very excited and interested.   

I'm almost convinced that if we had let her, she would have climbed right into the bear enclosure and mauled those bears more than they would have her.

 

She did get to touch the statue of a bear.  She liked that a lot. 

 

June Bug's favorite books are the Llama Llama books we get from the library.  She absolutely loves Llama Llama and finally got to meet him at the zoo. 

 

The zoo wasn't very crawler-friendly. June Bug was constantly in the stroller or in Mama's arms. It took us awhile, but we finally found just the place for June Bug to stretch her legs.

 

She even got to play a game of peek-a-boo.

 

 

 

We had to make sure we stopped in and saw Daddy's favorite animal . . . the sloth. I'm not sure if we've posted this in the past, but N8 was able to hold a sloth when he was in Colombia during his old sailor days.

She was fascinated with the bright strange birds she saw. 

And loved the monkeys.   June Bug's great Aunt A gave her some fun jungle-themed stickers to put up on the wall.  It has monkeys on them and ever since she was very small, we would show them to her and say, "Monkey . . . OOOO OOOO OOO EEE EEE EEE."  That was probably the first word she recognized and when she first started to crawl, all we would have to say is monkey and she would crawl right to it.  She even tries to mimic the noise. 

Somebody made these out of Lego's.  We thought they were real from far away.  They were really cool! 

 The gorilla was very friendly.  He came over and posed for us. 

This orangutan was a little shy and kept his distance. 

I told June Bug that this ape-statue is a statue of her daddy.  She thought that was pretty silly and laughed and laughed.  Mama's so funny! 

She loved riding the elephant's trunk.  You almost have to make an appointment to get your child a chance to get this close, let alone take a picture on this elephant.  It is always overrun with kids. 

We had a fun time seeing this goose with her goslings.  She was just out roaming around with the little fellas.  Not something you see every day. 

 

Of course, the peacock has to show off. 

 

 

 

 They added this new exhibit to the zoo and this was the first time we were able to see it. It had seals, a sea lion, and otters. It was pretty fun to see.  

 

We had a really great time.  I think June Bug really enjoyed herself.  It was a very cold day.  We had to stand in the sun a lot to keep warm.  June Bug ended up with a little sunburn on her cheeks but I think it was worth it.  It was nice to spend our anniversary as a family.  I'm so grateful for the man I married and for the father that he is.