Jacksonville Zoo

Well we survived the zoo - but what a trip!

5:27 am - my alarm goes off - I MUST get up to get everything done to be at Mom's house by 7:30.

6:00 am - I am at the YMCA waiting to get weighed for Team Lean (I did lose 1.7 lbs this week)

6:45 am - wake up William and feed him

7:15 am - head to Mom's house

Once at Mom's house, we had to figure out how we were all going to get in the car - a total of 7 people can fit in her car and there were only 6 of us going. The problem was fitting all the car seats in. We started off having William's car seat in the back but realized that in order to have him in securely, the two chairs in front of him had to be moved all the way up, meaning mom would have had NO leg room. So we pulled out William's car seat and then put Anna Claire's back there. This worked - except now there was NO space between the middle car seats and the front seats for me to get in the back of the car. I am definitely NOT limber but I knew I could do it - and I did do it on several occassions - and yes, I am on muscle relaxers today (joking).

We finally all get in the car - Julie is driving, mom in the passenger seat, William behind Julie, Mallory behind mom, I'm behind William and Anna Claire behind Mallory - got it?

Of course with the third row up there is NO room in the back for storage so every space is being used - William's stroller is between William and Mallory and I have William's two bags, Mallory's bag, Anna Claire's bag, the DVD player and DVD bag, and my purse ALL between Anna Claire and me. Fun times!

We leave about 8:15 - running a little behind but honestly we are lucky we were all in and on the way.

The trip down there was great until about the last 30 minutes. Mallory had had enough! And William is sensitive so when Mallory started screaming - not whinning but screaming - so did William - yeah!!!! But for a 2 1/2 hour drive - 30 minutes of crying is not that bad.

We got to the zoo about 11:00 and what a beatiful day. We all had strollers - Julie pushing Mallory, Mom pushing Anna Claire, and me pushing William. Honestly it was more like Anna Claire pushing her own stroller for most of the day!

All the animals were great! We saw elephants, giraffes, snakes, leopards, panthers, monkeys, rhinos, birds, wolves, deer, ant eaters, bairds (look this one up if you want to), kangaroos, lions, etc.

Of course the highlight was the gorilla Keto. Keto was quite the character. When we got to his space - we couldn't see him. There were two other women and a man there looking for him too. They all had their faces smashed against the window looking for him. Mom goes over there too and has her face right there on the window. All of a sudden Keto does a BODY SLAM into the window. There were screams and other words used by these two women and the man. Oh yeah - mom screamed really loud too!!! Which of course made julie and I laugh but made Anna Claire cry. The zoo keeper came by and said the Keto does this all the time. He likes to scare the viewers by smashing his 800 lbs against the window. He would be over 6 ft tall if he stood straight so we are not talking about a monkey but a GORILLA. About 5 minutes later, one of the ladies was still talking about how her heart was still racing. It totally made everyone jump. It was great - Anna Claire later said her favorite animal was the large animal that scared shug. :)

The trip home was pretty good. William was fussy a little because it was dinner time and he had a very little nap. We stopped for dinner and fed him and then everyone was great from dinner to home.

Anyway, we arrived back home about 8:15 or so. Great trip - the kids did great and we had a ball. I will post pics as I get some from Julie and mom. I didn't take any.