So Thursday night I picked him up from daycare. I had the car loaded and we were on our way to Rochester to spend the night at Allison and Daron's. We were up at 6:00 a.m. on Friday morning, brought Hailey over to my sister Cindy's house and Aiden and I were headed to the zoo!! Thank god he fell asleep soon after we started driving because I don't know how many times he asked me "Are we at the zoo yet?" haha
He woke up just a few blocks before we pulled into the zoo. When he woke up he saw the big sign that said "Minnesota Zoo" and asked what it said. I told him, "We're here buddy, we're at the zoo!!" The excitement in his face and voice could not be explained. I haven't seen him smile like that in months. So we found our parking spot, but we had to sit in the car because the zoo didn't open until 9:00 a.m. and it was only 8:30. Plus we were meeting 2 other army wives with their kids and neither of them had arrived yet.
Waiting.... not something a 3 year old does well!! Once our friends Kirstin and Lizzie arrived we went in and started our venture through the zoo. Our first stop was the Japanese Snow Monkey's. Aiden figured out quickly, this isn't the farm. I don't think he could believe what he was seeing. I think he thought these animals only existed in books! They were pretty cool looking, unfortunately I didn't take any pictures, sorry! You can Google them if you want... haha! Well, apparently when I walked away Kirstin saw two of them "mating" if you want to call it that. Luckily Lizzie and Aiden didn't see it because I don't think either of us would know how to answer the questions that would follow!! :o) haha... I did notice however that the monkeys have very red butts.... I just thought it was a weird trait about them but as we continued to walk to the next exhibit I read that when they have red butts it means they are in heat!! :o) Let me tell ya, there had to have been 30 monkeys out there, if not more and they all had some really red butts!! haha
Our next stop was the underwater aquarium. Probably the coolest thing I have ever seen. Aiden and Lizzie especially loved this part. At one point while Aiden was standing in the window looking at the fish there was one huge fish that swam up in front of him and just stared... for minutes. It was pretty funny. If you look closely at the picture below you will see the fish!
After the aquarium it gets a little fuzzy. Lets just say the zoo is not the place to be on a holiday weekend. It got so busy you could hardly walk. I think Aiden was even overwhelmed. We continued to keep walking but at some of the places it was hard to see the animals because of all the people. At a few stops, Aiden didn't even want to get out of the stroller!
Regardless, we had a blast. At about 3:00 we were ready to go home! I no more pulled out of the parking lot of the zoo and Aiden was sleeping. I know he will remember the zoo for a long time though because he is still talking about it today.
This weekend it is off to Jellystone to stay with some friends for a mini-vacation before I head back to work. I can't wait!
