Weekend Away!

This past weekend, we packed up and headed to the zoo. We left after daddy got home from work on Friday, and spent the night in a hotel. We swam and enjoyed just relaxing! The next morning we went to the zoo. It was nice to be able to just take our time and not be in a rush.  We got to the zoo at 10 ish and left around 6.  It was a perfect day. The weather was awesome-not too hot, and it was a fun day all day!  Allie seemed to LOVE the whole day as well. She seemed to just take everything in and seemed to really enjoy the animals and the activity of the day.  

We took over 450 pictures- here are a few lot of my favorites! :)

Looking at the flamingos! :) 

Lions- So beautiful! 

We started out going the same direction as the majority of the crowd- clockwise around the zoo... then decided that it might be better if we went counter-clockwise. Smart idea! We had to wait to see a few exhibits, but not many.  

The elephants and the tigers were not there when we were. They were remodeling their areas and so they transferred them to other zoos.  A little disappointing... especially the elephants, but there were so many other animals and great finds that it was still TOTALLY worth the day! :) 

Checking out some "skunk monkeys" with daddy! 

Not totally sold on getting her picture taken with this fake monkey! 

Mama rhino.... 13 months pregnant!~One or two to go! Yikes! 

Allie liked them. She saw a ball and wanted to go play with them... :) 

I LOVE this picture! :) So precious! 

                                                                      So amazing!

Ostriches 

                                                              One of mommy's favorites!

                                                                Allie and Mommy! :)

Camels.... just taking it easy. 

Sleepy bear! 

Cutie! :) 

Black bear! 

:) 

This polar bear was so photogenic! :) 

Allie wanted him to jump in the water!

Daddy and Allie with the polar bear! :) 

Allie LOVED the seals. She just watched them. There were people around us feeding them fish. 

She liked it that they were in a pool and wanted to swim with them. 

So pretty! :) Watching the seals.

Daddy took her to a second level observation deck to watch them.  She's got her eye on them! :) 

She really liked this aquarium.  She loved looking at the fishies!

Trying to touch them. 

Wanted to take daddy down to see them too. :)

                                            Beautiful birds. Allie wanted to touch them. They WERE really pretty!

Looking for the gorilla. He was kind of in the corner hiding. 

This was her absolute favorite exhibit.  The spider monkeys.  She just watched them.  They were very active and playful. She stood right up at the glass and just laughed at them. It was the most precious thing ever! She had this belly laugh every time they did something silly.  I was holding her at one point, and just had tears streaming down my face because I was laughing at her reaction... daddy and I both said that that was our favorite exhibit as well- just because of her reaction to it.  It was so precious. We caught it on video a little, but it doesn't do it much justice to the real reaction. We actually stood there for quite a while and then left to continue our tour, and she kept saying... "Monkeys again please". So we went back and watched for a while longer. :) She is so fun!!! :)

We were on the go all day. She did amazing. I knew that she was tired, and we still had a few things to see yet. We found a grassy, shaded area- under a tree- and spread out our blanket and just took a little break. I rocked her and sang to her and tried to get her to sleep. We could tell she was tired and so close to napping, but she didn't want to give up. She wanted to play on the playground some more, and would relax with my songs, but then remember where she was and spring up. I finally ended up standing up and swinging/rocking her back and forth- while singing, and she was out in NO TIME AT ALL! :) She slept for about 45 minutes under the tree- curled up on this blanket. It was so cute! People would walk by and just smile, and say "Awe...!"  

After she woke up, she was raring to go again! :) we played on the playground a little bit more and then kept on going... :)

She actually loved the slides (as long as one of us went with her). This picture- her face doesn't look like it, but she really did like them! :) 

This turtle was HUGE! They were so neat! Their heads were really soft. 

Our last stop was the Rain forest. It was fun. We saw more animals and had lots of fun. We will definitely go back to this zoo again! It was so full of things to look at and it was such a good day! It was fun to see everything through Allie's eyes! :) We grabbed a bite to eat and went back to the hotel and ate and then crashed. :) It was a perfect weekend get-a-way!