Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Hogle Zoo

Today we went to the zoo! Part of the deal with our Dinosaur Park Pass was discounted admission to the Zoo this summer, which was rad, for a Zoorassic theme. We took Sophie's cousins, Alexa and Eva. What a fun day! We brought the wagon but Sophie wanted nothing to do with it so I carried her in the Beco and the neices rode in the wagon. It was SOOO hot but we still had a lot of fun. We were there about two hours.

They had dinosaurs throughout the zoo. This dinosaur happened to be a spitting dinosaur that would spray water and move and roar at us. It took all three of you by surprise!

We stopped by the elephants. There was a baby elephant that was so adorable. They were all eating hay so it was fun to see how high they could stretch. Next we went to the tiger area. Sophie found a puddle so that was the highlight of her trip I think, ha! Next up was the giraffes. I was surprised at how well it went because I think this was the first animal that Sophie actually focused on and watched. Sophie has a hard time transitioning to the next thing. So usually when we leave something, she has a little tantrum/breakdown and doesn't realize that the next thing we do will be fun too. It is hard sometimes and I wish I could reason with her better.

Next up was the primate building, which was her favorite place. There was a gorilla in one room and he was hilarious. Sophie loved him. It was cool because she could get right up close to the glass and that was the only thing separating you from him. He was really active and doing a lot of silly things - like flinging poop and sticks, swinging from his toys, and walking all around. It definitely kept Sophie's attention. Kale stayed with Sophie while I took the nieces to see the other primates in the building. Sophie would check out other animals but always wander back to her gorilla friend. She was smiling and waving at him, and she'd say "HI" in a really funny Sophie voice. Kale said once the gorilla kind of snuck up just under the window and then popped up really fast at her and she got startled and jumped backwards. The gorilla thought it was pretty funny that he caught you off guard. That didn't stop her though, and she was right up at the window again.

Outside the primate building there was a huge dinosaur and Sophie immediately ran up to it to hitch a ride. She stayed sitting on him for quite a while. When we finally had to take her off it was quite the hysteria, such drama...

We went to another building with smaller monkeys and even though Sophie didn't bond with them as much, she enjoyed watching them. We found these cute wooden horses and sat everyone on them and Sophie loved it. She kept patting and petting the horse's mane. She stayed on that thing for quite a while! The cousins got bored so we saw some other animals while Kale and Sophs stayed behind to keep riding the horse.


It was just as hard pulling you from this horse as it was from the dinosaur. We went to the last spot with bats an gophers and stuff. Then, there was a huge playground with slides and a teeter-toter. Everyone had a lot of fun there. Sophie was going down the slides all by herself which she thought was pretty cool. She figured out to fan her legs out on the side of the slides to keep a slow pace. On the way out of the zoo we stopped by the water ball and Sophie just plopped down and loved it. She loves water so much! After the zoo we met up with Kale's side of the family at the Spaghetti factory and had dinner. Sophie doesn't like pasta, or the bread they have there, so it's always hard to keep her quiet and happy. We usually give her a cup full of ice and she practices stirring and spooning the ice. Another go-to thing is to bring in the iPad and play her favorite TV shows. That always works and boy are we glad! After dinner, we headed home. It was such a fun day to play at the zoo, I hope we can go again soon.

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