A Day at the Zoo

I let Cole skip school on Thursday while we went and spent a day at the zoo.  It was a nice surprise for him.  I should have expected it, but their behavior getting out the door and on the way to the zoo was rough.  Spawned out of excitement I'm sure.  Once we arrived it was much better.  Grammy and the 3 littles went on the train and the big kids and I went to pet the sting rays.  They haven't had a chance to do that in a few years, so they didn't even really remember doing it.  They really loved it this time.  They were finally big enough to get their hands in their and really pet them as they were swimming by.  There were lots of them and they were active because it was nearing feeding time. There were also three babies in the pool also.  

I learned a fun fact while we were standing there.  In order to mate the male sting rays, which are smaller, bite the females fins, flip them over and mount them for a quickie.  Sometimes, if the female is too large, two males will flip her and then take turns.  I thought that was so interesting.  The babies then come out rolled up like little burritos and then unfold when they hit the water.  There is then no maternal connection after birth.

Then the kids got to ride the carousel, which they ask to do all the time.  They had a great time with that.  After the sting rays and the train and the carousel we headed to the rear part of the zoo, where we seldom go, to see the animals on the way to the kids farm and petting zoo.  That ended up being a sort of flop because they really wanted to see (as we always do) the big cats and monkeys. We'll have to save that for next time because by 2:00pm they were all tired and ready to go (except for Cole of course).  

Overall, they had a great time.  We did some things we haven't done in a long time which was so fun.  We are thankful for Grammy and her buying us a membership.  THANKS GRAMMY!