Trip to the Zoo

We have a zoo within an hour's drive from us.  A few months ago, we signed up for the annual membership.  We've been a handful of times already, and it's been worth every penny of the investment. 

 

My little guy loves animals.  This started with Go Diego Go!  Now, we play with the dinosaurs at the library every trip, check out animal books, and look for age-appropriate animal toys.  He can say many animal names and duplicate about 20 animal sounds. 

 

The very first time we went to the zoo, he learned the flamingo sound.  They make this honk/grunt sound, which surprised me since they are such graceful-looking animals.  This trip to the zoo, however, we got a little too close to the flamingos.  In this picture, they're all sleeping and looking peaceful.  One minute after the picture was taken, one flamingo decided to get closer to the water and started honking and flapping his way to the water.  This, of course, frightened my little guy, and he started shrieking!  After some comfort from Mama, he was better and we moved to another exhibit!

 

We also really like the giraffes and elephants at the zoo.  We have both of these in toy form, and my little one enjoyed seeing them up close and moving!  We watched the elephants take a walk with the zookeeper, and we saw the giraffes eating leaves way above our heads!

 

Ok, I saved the coolest part ... Our zoo just opened a kangaroo exhibit.  In this exhibit, you can actually walk around IN the exhibit.  You have to stay on the path, but you're within 10 feet of most of the kangaroos.  If they hop onto the path, you can pet them!  So... we got to pet a kangaroo!  Seriously!  How many people get to pet a kangaroo?!  That was our favorite part of the zoo trip! 

 

What's your favorite zoo animal?