Hogle Zoo with the Wardles and Andersons

My good friend, Andrea, from HS and College invited us to her daughter, Charley's birthday party at the Zoo!  We were excited to hear that the construction was finally done and thought it would be the perfect opportunity to buy a new membership.  We had let ours expire and didn't go for the last year or so.  

When Thursday came, I was feeling less motivated to go.  Nobody was getting ready fast enough and I was just nagging all morning long.  So we didn't make it to the zoo at 10:00 when the party started, but we did make it out of the house around 10:30.  The problem we hadn't anticipated was how popular the Zoo was going to be that day!  We got to the Zoo around 11:00 and drove around the parking lot for WAY too long.  I'm gonna say 45 minutes, but I think it was actually longer than that.  The last thing I wanted to do was walk 2 miles to get into the place where I was going to have to walk!  (I know I sound like a wuss, but it really is painful)  So we continued to look for a spot.  I was glad when I got the idea to park up at the This is the Place Monument parking, it was almost empty and just across the street from the Zoo.  So that was a huge blessing.  

We got up to the entrance and ended up standing there for another 15 or 20 minutes, in line, to pick up our memberships that I had ordered online.  That was annoying.  

We made it to Andrea around 12:30.  We got to see the Polar Bears and the Grizzly Bears first, along with the sea lions.  That was a fun new surprise for my kids!  Not to mention we got to hang out with Andrea and her family and friends.  I LOVE Andrea's family.  I can't believe how much everyone has changed, but seriously, they are the funnest people.  Andrea's Dad actually took a bite of a fruit roll up WITH the plastic because he had no idea what it was and how you're supposed to eat it.  I laughed :).  

The Zoo was so packed!  I haven't seen it that busy in years!  It was a lot of fun though.  I was proud of how well my kids did the whole time.  There was little complaining and they stayed by me the whole time.  That was a relief.  Taking six kids to a busy Zoo could have been a lot more stressful than it ended up being and I was grateful for that as well.

We had packed our own lunches and basically ate them on the go because the kids had been hungry, but I didn't realize that Andrea's group hadn't eaten lunch yet.  So I was a little bummed when they said they were going to stop to get some lunch.  I didn't want my kids to have to sit there and watch them eat.  I decided we would go on and look at some of the animals while they ate, then meet back up with them.    This was when I realized that all the pictures I'd taken of my kids with Andrea's kids had been taken in Manual with the wrong settings so none of them worked out.  But I did end up getting some pictures of my kids anyway. 

of course Noah boycotted this photo.  He doesn't want me to have a picture of all of my adorable children together apparently.

I really just let my kids call all the shots at this point.  I was too tired to try to get them to do things they weren't interested in, so we made our way down to the playground even though I knew that was going to put us way out of the way to meet up with Andrea.  They had a lot of fun there.

Bradley whispered in Erika's ear, "Say, 'Mom, take a picture of us!'"

We then made our way back toward the party, and ended up stopping in the Gift Shop because Kelly had had some birthday money burning a hole in her pocket the whole day.  She desperately needed to buy herself a stuffed animal.  We were happy to find out they were having a great deal on the larger ones, they were half off and the same price as a smaller one Kelly had almost bought at a different gift shop stand earlier.  She ended up with a really cute giraffe.  Then we picked out a cute little gift for Charley.  

We were able to meet back up with Andrea to go see the monkeys, and then we were really done.  Erika had fallen asleep in the stroller and Luke had been patient enough with all of it it was time to put him out of his misery.  He really doesn't love the Zoo.  Strange.  

It was a really fun time though.  And now that we have a Zoo pass, we will have to go up there lots this Summer.