the zoo with friends

 The zoo is still very much a mask mandated activity here which we've tried to avoid to give our kids a break from having to wear one but our good friends are in the process of looking for a new house and moving so we are trying to spend as much time with them as we can before they go. The zoo with friends is always a good time! We got an up close view of the tiger walking around her enclosure ... she is usually just lounging in the sun.

Perhaps the strangest yet cutest exhibit of them all was a baby anteater riding on its momma's back! 

Another fun moment was discovering this goose nest. She was sitting on top of 7 eggs!

Lyla loved playing in the hut and didn't want to leave it!

The safari jeep was open this time and is always a big hit! 

Those were the beautiful curated moments but there were definitely several tears in-between .. mostly from our poor bug terrified Liam. Since it is Spring, most flowers were in bloom around the zoo which meant there were quite a lot of bees. Really giant ones too that were totally harmless but looked really intimidating. Liam had multiple panic attacks anytime one was in his line of sight. No matter how many times we tried to reassure him that they wanted nothing to do with him, he just couldn't believe that. He was also very disappointed that he didn't get to see his two favorite animals ... the bat exhibit was still closed and the alligator was being kept inside due to colder weather. A little dose of reality that not every moment is fun but we can learn a lot from the hard moments too.

Crossing our fingers for that bat exhibit to open by our next visit and some more smiles to follow!