"More zoo, please!"

Charles's cousin, Amanda, is in town visiting from Oklahoma, so we've been doing the tourist thing for the past few days. (See our trip to the Botanical Gardens below.) Monday took us to the good 'ole zoo. This is our 3rd trip to the zoo this spring/summer, and Maria is really loving it. She knows what to expect, but she's still excited by all of the animals and attractions.

Maria LOVES having Amanda around. She held Amanda's hand walking around (while I shlepped around the childless stroller). And she wanted to do just about everything Amanda did. Even to the point of letting go of my hand in the goat area. But she kept a tight grip on Amanda's shorts!

Maria really got into the activities set up in the Children's Zoo building this time around. She loved cutting up the play food provided, and persistently tried to give it to the guinea pigs until the nice zoo worker said thank you, but they weren't hungry right now.

Then she ran right up to the mini-veterinarian play area they had. She 'fixed' the little toy camel they had (poor thing never knew what hit him!).

And her usual favorites, the water fountains and slide, were skipped over in favor of looking at the animals in the mini-cages scattered throughout the Children's Zoo. She loves owls and turtles right now. She even paused long enough to let me get a picture of her in front of the animal height chart:

We feel pretty cool going to the zoo with our membership this year (Thanks, Nonnie!). We pull right into the 'close parking' spaces that I longed for as a child, ease right up to the counter to get our tickets for the children's zoo, train, carousel, and sea lion shows, and then set off on our day. That's it! No waiting in line, crossing your fingers that you brought enough cash, or sneakily staying away from the carousel because we didn't bring enough money! We bring our lunch, so we have a GREAT day without having to dent the bank account at the same time!

Maria crashed in the car, of course, but this time happily with Amanda, her new "fwend" alongside in the backseat. She woke up when we pulled in the driveway and said, "More zoo, please!"

Don't worry, we'll definitely be back!