In the Wild

I decided to take the kids to the zoo this morning. OMG it was hot. Thankfully I had brought my Squeeze Breeze fan with me. I got some looks while using it but I think they were just jealous they didn't think of bringing one! ;) Bella sure appreciated it. Poor baby was sweating and so hot. The boys had little hand held light up fans I bought at Target this week for 90% off. I think they came to maybe 0.28 each. :)

We started our day trying to find some animals out and actually moving around. It was too hot even for them. We walked by an empty rhino exhibit at one point and I had totally forgotten there was a new baby just born to the Indian Rhino 3 weeks ago. So when we looped back around and saw they were out we stopped by again. I did notice some newspeople around filming so I wasn't sure we could get up there but all was okay. There was a guy standing next to us as we were oohing and aahhing over the new baby (sooooo freaking adorable!!) and it ended up that he was with the St Pete Times newspaper. He took some video of the boys and asked me their names and ages and told me to look at the website later today. As it turns out the video is up but we ended up on the cutting room floor. Oh well.
(This pic is actually over by the tigers)



Back to the baby. She is Adorable- with a capital A. She reminded me of a toddler just following after her mama- even in the way she walked. The handler you see in the video was giving them half of a cantaloupe (we were there to see it) and Mama gobbled it right up. When offered to the baby she pretty much turned her nose up at it and Mama nosed her out of the way to get to it. Mmm treat! The baby is still nursing, she knows what's best! By the way if you go to the LPZ website there's a contest to name the baby!


After the rhinos we went down another path and right in the middle of the boardwalk under the flume ride where the water sprinkles down was a beautiful black and yellow butterfly. It was drinking? the water off of the boards. I didn't have my SLR with me but I was able to get a decent photo.


From there we ended up in the Manatee/amphibian/reptile/aquatic exhibits. Ahhh air conditioning! Logan sat on the floor and Bella came over to sit in his lap. Aww. Awkward pic but cute nonetheless.


I had told the boys we'd play in the water area but by the time we got over there the storm clouds were starting to build. We did go see Bundaleer, our new koala bear. I didn't get a good photo though as he was turned away from us sleeping. Turns out they sleep 20 hours each day. I like my sleep but I don't think I could sleep that much! As we made our way over to Africa it started to sprinkle. It felt so nice so we kept going. Got just about to the elephants (near the end) and the thunder started. Most people in FL seem to ignore thunder but I know better and told the kids it was time to go. By the time we got closer to the entrance of the zoo it was raining harder and we ended up pretty darn wet by the time we made it to the car. I had handed one of our beach towels to the boys and when we got to the car, it was gone. Argh. So here I am trying to load 3 kids into carseats in the now pouring rain, load my soaked stroller in the back and trying to keep from getting soaked completely through myself. I did drive around the front of the zoo and my towel was hanging up on some railing. Just as I jumped out of the truck to get it an old man grabbed it to dry himself off! I guess he's the one who found it too and left it hanging. It's a *good* towel so I was happy to get it back.

What a day! I ended up stopping at Little Caesars on the way home for $5 Hot & Ready pizza and Crazy Bread (mmm). I must have looked like a total mess but we were all hungry and I had promised them pizza for lunch today. Hey $8.03 isn't bad for a pizza and 2 bags of CB! The kids were happy. I was happy when naptime came just a half hour later!