St. Louis Zoo

We started off our vacation with a trip to the St. Louis Zoo on Tuesday. It was awesome! (and free, which made it even better!) During the first hour, the stingray & shark exhibit and the children's zoo were free, so we did that first. Madison wanted nothing to do with the stingrays...she is very unsure about a lot of things these days! Mackenzie and Brian loved it! The Children's Zoo was great...we started out in the goat area. I love the picture of Madison sticking her head in between Brian's legs. Again, she didn't want anything to do with the goats either! Her favorite part was the "Animal Hospital" where the kids could dress up as animal doctors. It is easy to see by the pictures that she loved it! The girls also got to pet guinea pigs & rabbits and pretend to make food for the animals. We laughed later about the fact that we spent $68 at the "free" zoo...we rode the train and made a stop at Build-a-Bear! G-Ma and Pa sent the girls with some spending $ and that is what they wanted to do with it. (as if we needed another Build-a-Bear!) Mackenzie got a fox named "Diamond" and Madison got a flamingo named "Pinky." And then of course we had to have the little "St. Louis Zoo" shirts for them to wear, so we could remember where they came from! The St. Louis zoo is one of the best in the nation. Other than the fact that I still had a terrible headache, we had a great time. After the zoo, we went back to our hotel and took naps & later that evening went to the Arch and walked around. Tuesday was a really fun day! Soooo cute! Love this girl! Daddy got to touch the shark, but it was too deep in the water for Mackenzie to reach it. Oh, Madison! She liked it much better when I got down on her level and helped her pet the goats.Who knows, maybe they'll be zoologists one day! There's the happy smile we like to see!Such a good little animal doctor! They were so excited to see Dory & Nemo!I'm not sure what this look is about?!Madison liked the guinea pigs much better than the goats...probably because they didn't move!Mackenzie is as tall as a river otter!Madison was in between the red tailed hawk & the koala!This picture is a classic! I just wonder what they were both thinking! Making funny faces at the gorillas.It was so neat that they were right up at the window like this. That's one big hippo!Looking at lots of fish...
Finally, Madison's favorite animal...a ladybug! (Or in her words, an "e-buh!") That's way better than a bunch of ol' goats! The train was a lot of fun...we even got to go through a couple of tunnels. We love Build-a-Bear!Kissing the heart! Mackenzie kind of had a melt down as we were leaving Build-a-Bear, but she recovered quickly. I don't even remember what it was about, but I just know that she and Madison were both crying as we left the store. They were both very happy about their new friends, though!
They had a very COLD, stinky penguin exhibit.This is Mackenzie's cold face!Mackenzie kept telling us to be quiet so that Diamond could take a nap!It was very hot by the time we made it back to the car. We were all glad for the air conditioning, lunch at McDonald's, and naps at the hotel!Is this sweet, or what?! Brian, Madison and I all fell asleep...Mackenzie just sat up and colored very quietly. She isn't into taking naps at all these days. When I woke up, I colored with her. I had so much fun playing with the girls this week. It was nice to have a break from making cookies too!While Brian and Madison were still asleep, I was looking through the pictures on my camera, and Mackenzie struck a pose for me. She's so funny about that!