lions and tigers and bears-oh my!

OK, maybe my post title should read-penguins, goats and a carousel-oh my! We took Evie to the zoo for the first time on Saturday and it was fun! We went with our good friends the Clayton family. Once we got to the zoo, navigated a good parking spot and figured out what the heck a zoo-goer pass included we were ready to begin our adventure. We first headed to the carousel-why?-because it is free before 10 am of course! I envisioned an adorable photo-op of Evie with a grinning face sitting on top of a cute little monkey figurine as we gently glided up and down-instead I got a terrified baby that had a death grip on me, and and an out of focus picture of a poor scared, shaking baby-but at that point we could not get off so we just made the best of it and tried to comfort her all while thinking-"can't wait to share this story of her first carousel ride with her once she is a teenager"-I am sure we will all be able to laugh about it someday!Next stop the angry gorillas-they were playing some sort of hide and seek game with each other, and then one beat on it's chest which created a huge thud-we asked the guys if they could make that noise when banging on their chests-they could not. I think the gorillas were more entertaining for the adults. After that we headed towards the children's zoo-which was a hit! She loved "petting" (or grabbing and smacking) the goats! They had to have been a bit sedated as they just sat there as children grabbed,hugged and pulled their horns-oh wait that was my 29 year old husband that was grabbing the horns (he "just wanted to know what they would do") Evie even dropped her beloved paci to the ground in her excitement. She also pet the guinea pigs but wanted nothing to do with the snake. From there we had a picnic lunch-let me tell you trying to get a one year old to eat her food (her own food and not another person's food) while sitting on a blanket on the ground is no easy task-she really just wanted to crawl around and investigate what everyone else was eating ("but mom-I found it on the ground fair and square") After lunch we visited some more animals and my little actress had fun copying the birds "woo-hoos" causing a good laugh from our group. We walked around and saw various other animals but she was too tired to care and ended up dozing in the stroller. I wish I could have dozed in the stroller too! We ended our day at the penguin house which was cold-but she enjoyed watching the penguins-until they splashed her in the face with cold water which elicited a cry and another death grip on mommy. Poor girl-but all in all I think she had a good day! Can't wait to go again!