Natalie goes to the ZOO

The end of last week I was starting to feel bored around the house. So, I started thinking of places I could bring Natalie where she would have fun (versus just taking her on an errand). I looked up petting zoos and found out about York's Wild Kingdom. It didn't take much talking into for Mike to agree for us to go over the weekend. Actually, he got passes at his work for us to go at almost half price!

So, Saturday morning we head out at 9 so that we would be there when they opened. Mike's mom had stayed over the night before so it was us, his mom, and Natalie. Luckily, I had gotten most of our bag packed the previous night so there wasn't as much rushing around. Natalie slept most of the car ride just as we had planned. After applying some some screen to Natalie, we head into the park.

Well, the first place we wanted to go was the rest room, but we saw a lot of animals along the way. (When we finally did find a rest room, it had the changing table outside, and Natalie cried the whole diaper change as the sun beat down on her).

We saw lots of great animals including: goats and kids; ducks and swans; an elephant from a distance which we forgot to go back to see up close; lots of different kinds of primates; lots of birds including a peacock and parrots; camels; antelope; various reptiles including a huge toad and a few types of tortoises; two baby black bears; kangaroo with a joey in its pouch; lots of butterflies including these huge beautiful blue ones whose name we can't remember; llamas; deer include fawns with spots like Bambi; ostrich; pigs; zebra; alligator; prairie dogs; and two lions and two tigers (one white and one orange) who were too far away to see well. This is most of what you can see at the zoo. In fact out of this list on the web site, I feel like the only thing we really didn't see was the sloth.




Highlights of the trip:

• Nana feeding the ducks so Natalie could see them up close
• A goat almost licking Natalie's bare foot
• Natalie watching some of the animals, particularly the butterflies, ducks, goats, and deer
• Root beer floats for the adults
• Natalie trying cantaloupe for the first time out of Mommy's fruit cup
• Natalie generally being a very happy baby the whole trip even in her front facing stroller
• Natalie's first ride on a carousel, on the bench, not a horse

Really the only bad things were diaper changes, which she really cried during both of them, and an uncomfortable nursing session for Mommy. I was of course a little bummed that the tigers had thwarted me yet again, but at least this time, unlike our trip to Disney Animal Kingdom, we could see the tigers in the distance.

After the zoo, we went to the amusement park, but it was a bit of a disappointment. There were about two rides for adults, neither of which Mike and I wanted to go on, even though we did go through the pitch black haunted house. All the kids rides, minus the carousel, we ones that we couldn't bring Natalie on holding her. Don't get me wrong. When she is like four, it will kick ass, but just not yet. After a couple walks around the amusement park area, we left. Natalie was just about done, but still not crabby. Her eyes began to droop as I rocked her outside the car letting it cool of a bit. She slept most of the ride home and was agreeable the rest of the afternoon.


Overall, it was a fabulous day for everyone.