Craig works for the Florence Unified School District, so he had the past two weeks off for spring break. Last Monday, we decided to go to the zoo. We haven't been in a long time and Ella and Caleb have never been. So off we went!
Ella was very apprehensive about the whole thing for about the first half of the trip(we were there about four hours) because while she loves animals, she had never really seen any in person. Except for chickens and horses, and cows she sees while driving by. I think she was a bit startled by their size. It probably didn't help that the first animals you see are the giraffes. So because of this, she refused to even look at the giraffes, lions, tigers, the rhino and few others. There was even a little chipmunk that came right up to us, but she screamed and frightened it away! But it all changed when she saw the flamingos. She was fascinated by them. Both kids where. It was about that point that she started to really enjoy the zoo. The funny thing was that during lunch, I asked her if she was having fun(this was during her unsure time), she said she was.
Caleb, on the other hand enjoyed the heck out of the whole trip! He would have stayed watching each animal for hours if he could. Each animal exhibit we left, he started yelling to stay. Funny boy! I think the highlight of the trip was when the peacocks started following us and getting really close. The kids got a big kick out of it. And we all really enjoyed the bald eagles. We have been watching the Decorah eagle nest on Ustream, so it was neat to see them in person.
It was so cute the rest of the week to hear the kids talk about 'bazoo', as Ella calls it. They had the best time of their lives!
Since Ella missed many of the animals, we will definitely be back as soon as we can. It was such a fun day. We didn't take many pictures, but here are a couple of the kids in the farm animals section. I don't know what they call it. All I know is that we were right by Pedro the donkey.
