Trip to the San Diego Zoo

Ben and I decided that we wanted to celebrate our birthdays this year by going to the San Diego Zoo. This was super exciting for us because Carolyn has never been to the zoo. She loves talking about different animals and it's adorable the way she'll describe them. For example the kangaroo goes boing boing! And of course the lion is described by his "roar."

We were thrilled to get to share this experience with my parents. They very sweetly treated us as part of our b-day gift, but we just wanted them to get to enjoy the delights of Carolyn's first time seeing animals like this up close!

When we first walked in the first animals we came upon were the flamingos. Carolyn instantly recognized them from her pj's at home.

But that was it for the flamingos, she got right to work checking out her map! She loves to look at maps (recall Disneyland) and she was excited to see what animals were on it.

Her intense concentration cracks me up!

One of her bucket list animals to see was the hippos. We spotted one in the exhibit, and it appeared to be taking an underwater nap. Not exactly thrilling to a toddler who now gets upset if you mention the N-word. But this statue of a hippo was oh-so-exciting!

Everybody took turns holding Carolyn up to see the animals. It was cute the way she'd pick a different person each time. She was good about not playing favorites.

It was crazy how close you get to be to the leopards!

I loved how they had these cat walks for the leopards, we were hoping one would cross on them and we got lucky!

My favorite was the polar bear exhibit, they called it the story of two bears and even had giant story books with pages that turned to tell the story!

After meeting the GIANT polar bear statue the real deal of a lazy bear was a little bit less exciting.

But she loved to pretend she was a seal!

Maybe she'll grow up to be an elephant trainer!

The story here is that EVERY time we go to Knott's Berry Farm (we go several times a month with our annual passes) we stop by the giant rooster which is in front of their famous chicken restaurant. She always says hello to him and gives him some pets. One time I tried to skip saying hi, oh boy did I hear about it! I turned my booty around and we made sure we didn't neglect our faux feathered friend. This extinct bird reminded her of her rooster friend, so she of course had to give it some love.

She had the best time counting the penguins as the walked by!

As we were hanging out waving hello to the giraffes, one of them took an interest in Carolyn and came right over to us!

Hi guys!

Boy it was a fun day, and Carolyn was spoiled with attention all day long!

It even continued on the car ride home with Minnie Mouse playing Patty Cake!

Times like these are soooooo special and we feel very blessed to get to share them with family!