A bit of drama on every visit to the zoo

Maya and I visited the zoo a lot the first few months of the year.  We met my mom for all of the trips, and had a great time exploring at Maya's pace.  We normally ended our trip with a spin around the carousel, which Maya would skip up excitedly towards, and then would get nervous when the ride would start.  She normally had a death grip around my neck, but would pose before/after like she was happy as can be. 

Over MLK and President's Day, when Collin was off school, he joined us there.  His favorite spots were different from Maya's, and with Collin, we spent quite a bit of time in the amphibian exhibit, showing the alligator our ninja moves.  

Near the gorilla exhibit, Collin was hanging on the barrier fence as I told him not to do and scraped his arm on the way down.  He's not a fan of natural consequences.  My mom tried to distract them by taking a scared photo in front of the gorilla.  Collin looks like he's playing the part, but actually he's just being overly dramatic about his scrape that produced a half drop of blood.  

Grammy with her survivalist first aid, wrapping the wrist in toilet paper.  If you knew how tiny the scrape was, you'd agree this boy needs to develop some grit!

 And speaking of drama, Collin recovered amazingly well to handle the carousel, but Maya with her distraught face -

All smiles at the end.  The funny thing about the carousel is she asks us to ride it 5 minutes before we approach it every single time we're at the zoo, and then acts like she's being tortured when it spins and goes up and down.

President's Day was all about posing on statues -

We made it to the cheetah zookeeper talk which was really interesting to all but Maya.

 We love our elephants - this is the animal Maya talks about the most.

We normally head straight to the elephants and watch their bath and snack time.  Maya will randomly tell people that Duncan eats grapes and sweet potatoes, and I have to fill them in on the backstory that she's referring to the baby elephant at the zoo.

The monkeys were very vocal the last two times we visited.  As were my little monkeys -

The week before our hometown spring break, we met one of my best friends, her mom and daughter.  We surprisingly were the first ones there, so we fed the birds and ducks.

  

And then we had a beautiful day with these sweet girls.

Another teary-eyed carousel ride to cap off our visit.   

As we shift into summer, we perhaps have one more zoo run before we pause our visits until the fall, but we have made very good use of our zoo membership so far this year!