I always enjoy going to the Zoo once every summer, but I hate the heat so I always enjoy going on a mild day. We were planning on going yesterday but it RAINED all morning, so today it was overcast with a few early sprinkes, so we decided to go and, wow, we had the Zoo to ourselves! Yay for us!
I had four things on our agenda for the Zoo today:
1. Sting Rays (first hour at the Zoo is free admission to this seasonal event, so we did this first at 8 a.m.)
2. Cat Country (Nathan’s favorite animal is cats right now)
3. Zoomagination Station – this is a free play area that is inside and for children under five. You do need tickets… the first time slot is 10 a.m., so that is the time we went in at.
4. Ride the train!
I am so glad I planned ahead of time a schedule for us, because we were there for about 4 1/2 hours and we got in everything that we wanted to do before lunch time!
So, we got to the zoo at 8 a.m., and there is parking for $11, but since we were there so early, we parked right outside the zoo for free and had a very close walk to get in! I have never entered the zoo from the North entrance before, as it is sort of the ‘back’ entrance, but it was right by the Sting Rays and Zoomagination Station. Here is Nathan posing by some rocks in the front of the zoo.
And, petting a turtle… the St. Louis zoo also has a huge sculpture park of just turtles. I am going to see if my playdate friend from work wants to take the kids there sometime, as I think our boys would love it! Basically, it is a BUNCH of huge turtles and the kids get to climb all over them.
So, upon arrival we visited the Sting Ray Cove, which will leave the zoo on October 3rd. I am so glad that I was able to take Nathan to see the string rays because it really is fascinating!
Us girls
Jeremi couldn’t go to the zoo with us today, so I was there with my parents… and, on the way out the door this morning, Jeremi told me not to let Nathan touch the stingrays because the crocodile hunter died from a stingray. Well, we found out at the zoo that the stingrays have been ‘de’-sting’ed. Which… I guess is a good thing, because my Mom ticked one of the stingrays off! You are supposed to touch them with a flat palm on the top of their body and instead she accidently did the ‘pincher’ motion at one, and touched it under its flapper, and one word… “SPLASH!” Yep, that stingray was so mad it hit its flapper against the water and water was just EVERYWHERE! My mom got wet, I got wet and poor little Auttie got so wet so quickly that it startled her and she was crying over shock. So, DON’T touch them from UNDERNEATH!!! heheh. My mom felt so bad!
After the stingrays, we headed on a LONG walk over to cat country, so Nathan could see some BIG felines. Of course, on the way over there we passed this statue, which my brother would always comment on about how it looks just so bad… haha!
We also snuck a picture of Nathan with this gorilla, I love how they both have the same pose!
Cats generally sleep 20 hours a day, but we lucked out and saw them out and about this morning! In the first picture, this lion was in the tree and we saw him clumsily fall OUT of the tree! Nathan is STILL talking about that one! I took a lot of great pictures of the tigers but for some reason my camera is focusing on the bars and not of the tigers (which were behind the bars)… grrr, need to read the manual again.
So, after seeing the cats, we had to take the loooong walk back over to the Living World so that we could take the kids in the Zoomagination Station. The Moms Club I am in, my parents as teachers lady, etc. have all recommended taking the kids to this part of the zoo and I have FINALLY taken them to see it. Ohhhh, it was SO worth it. Did I mention it was free?
They had a huge rug with all kind of drawers around it with different types of animals, trees, water, etc. for the kids to pull out to build their own habitat.
Autumn just loved two big penquins that she found.
Here the kids are getting water out for their animals… Sissy just loves following along with her big brother…
The kids loved the play house… especially Autumn, she had one hand on the doorbell and one hand on the door at all times… her big thing is swinging doors right now!
They had so many things for the kids to play with that I can’t picture it all here… Nathan is playing with a screen that he sprayed with water, and they had sponges and squigee’s for the kids to clean the window with
Autumn checking out the tunnel first, then crawling in it… over and over, at least 4 times she had to crawl in and out of the tunnel
So, by this time we were getting tired… a nice relaxing train ride was the answer!
The train stopped at four different train stations, so we put Nathan in charge of the tickets to hand off each time they needed to rip a section off
Autumn LOVES riding the train!
Here we are before we left the zoo – aren’t the flowers pretty?
We will be going to the zoo again next month for ‘Boo at the Zoo’ with my sister-in-law’s sister’s family. I can’t wait to see the ‘spooky’ zoo at night- hopefully the weather will hold out for us that night so that we can go as you never know how it’ll be in October!
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