Our day at the zoo...

Today, we spent the day at the zoo with Graham's friend Abby and her Mommy Wendy. Graham and Abby play together every Thursday at school but it took them both a minute to recognize each other out of context. As you can tell from the picture, once they realized it was their buddy in the next stroller, they were fast friends! Our first stop was the dolphin show. This took some careful planning on our part. We couldn't sit down too early and risk the kids losing interest and wanting to get up, and we couldn't sit down too late and get stuck in the middle of a crowded row. We planned our entrance, sat on an aisle (in case we needed to make a quick escape!), and timed things perfectly. We had to entertain them for less than 5 minutes before the dolphins began their performance. For Graham, the child who loves all things aquatic, it doesn't get any better than giant flying "fish"!

We also made a stop at the children's petting zoo. Both Graham and Abby had a ball visiting with the goats. They babbled back and forth to each other, occasionally even trying to engage their new four legged friends in conversation as well. I'm not a huge farm animal fan, but I do remember being little and feeling thrilled to have a quarter to put into the machine for goat food. So, trying to be a good Mom, I put a quarter into the machine, held out my hand, and waited for the stinky, dirty goat food to fill my palm. I then handed the food to Graham and let him loose. He really enjoyed letting the goats eat from his hand and laughed when they licked his hand completely clean! Don't worry though, Graham's hands got a good scrubbing after the goats had their lunch. A goat tongue is no replacement for soap and water!

I think two sleeping babies covered in cookie crumbs is evidence of a very fun day! For the record, this is only the third time ever that Graham slept in his stroller. In fact, both babies slept so soundly that they slept right through our ice cream stop.