The Zoo!

Some friends of mine decided that we needed to take a trip down to the Phoenix Zoo with our kids. So on February 15th (I know, I'm slow in getting to this) we loaded into 2 minivans and headed down there. Conner and I rode with Mackenzie's crew and Jenny and Whitley followed in the other van. A couple of interesting things happened when we first got there. Makenzie and I were getting our kids and strollers out of the van and waiting for the other girls to do the same. We were standing in 2 parking spots and some other car stopped and wanted to get in one of the spots. Even though there were seriously tons of other spaces available we gathered all of our stuff and kids into one spot. We assumed the incoming vehicle would take the spot we just emptied out of, but no. It just sat there waiting and we just stood there staring until they pulled into the spot we were still standing in! We couldn't believe it, we cleared out a spot just for them and it wasn't good enough, they HAD to have the spot we were in which was of course right next to the other one. We, being sane people, gathered everyone up again and moved to the other spot while we waited. But its one of those moments when you really want to go back in time and change things. I would really like that moment back and keep standing there so the crazy lady wouldn't get to park there, although she may have just run us over instead. Clearly, I'm still amazed by her stupidity and rudeness. The other interesting thing though was when we were walking into the zoo we saw a nice little polygamist family. One husband, FOUR wives, and two children. I'm just so surprised that there were more wives than kids. I'm sure plenty of kids were still at home or something, but if you are going to drive all the way to Phoenix you would think you would bring more kids.

But after all that excitement it was on to the animals. We took about 12 pictures to try and get all the kids looking and this was the only one that Conner was even looking forward in. The rest he was either turned around or had just walked right out of the picture.

This was one of the few times Conner actually looked at an animal, here he is checking out the tiger.

He looks so inquisitive, doesn't he?

The second group picture went a little better. There's everyone starting with Sara Grace, Emiline, James, Conner, Sophi, Morgan, and Jackson

Here's a good example of Conner at the zoo. Look closely and right next to his face is the rhino resting. For the life of me I couldn't get Conner to look over at the rhino, he just did his own thing like look at birds that we could see anyday. Here there is some little deer like animal, but I don't remember what it actually was.

At least he was aware enough of this animal to let the guy know where it was. I was actually really proud of Conner pointing because I had recently read an article on the importance of pointing at his age and although he occasionally pointed to things he didn't do it near often enough. So for a couple of weeks I had been working on teaching him to point and he caught on really fast. Apparently the problem was simply us being bad examples and not pointing to things ourselves, but he's got it down now.

Gotta love those colorful butts.

Here's the kids admiring the monkey butts, or in Conner's case, enjoying climbing on something.

Mackenzie has this awesome stroller that can also be used as a bike trailer and its big enough for 3 kids.

Makenzie and her kids

Turtles in love

Sophi got a little too excited at lunch and somehow took a nose dive into the dirt and got quite a mouthful.

 The zoo has a Little People play area that is super cute and was Conner's favorite part.

He's been around animals plenty of times and has never been afraid, but for some reason when the kids got to go pet the cows he just stayed behind his stroller 20 feet away. It was very uncharacteric of him, but cute.

This was one of the few times Jackson got out of his stroller. I couldn't believe how content that kid was to sit in his stroller for hours, I was jealous.

Another favorite part for Conner was climbing on the tractor. Everyone else went off to the petting zoo but we had to stick with the tractor for an extra 20 minutes or so.

Eventually we made it to the petting zoo. Conner didn't act frightened at all but this was as close as he got to anything. He just kept going from one animal to look at it and then quickly move on to another. It might have helped if I had shown him how to pet them or something, but if he didn't care then I certainly saw no need to do it either.

Sara Grace, on the other hand, loved the goats.

Just hanging out in the strollers.

At this moment all the kids are enjoying the zebra but Conners making a beeline to some stairs. And that is a statue of a zebra you see, the real ones are behind him.

Gotta love naptime after a fun day. This nap didn't actually last very long, Conner can't get comfortable in his forward facing car seat since it doesn't recline enough to sleep. But the next day was great because he slept in an extra hour and then took a four hour nap to make up for it.

The zoo turned out to be pretty fun and the kids were very well behaved for not getting naps until much later than usual. Conner was a little young to enjoy the animals but he still had fun being there and getting to run around outside for hours.