William's second trip to the zoo...

Although the first trip to the zoo with Mom, Dad and Nonnie was fun for the grown-ups, at 6 months old it was hard for William to really pick the animals out of the natural surroundings they were surrounded by. Not today though, that's for sure! He was finding the hidden animals before we could!

It has probably been 15 years since I've been to the Central FL Zoo and was so excited at the chance to take my baby boy! As soon as we got there I started remembering all these things about the zoo from when I was younger. One thing I don't remember is the very cool miniature train that you can ride at the entrance of the zoo. There was no passing by the train with William in tow so we hurried up and got tickets for the next ride. He was so excited (and a little nervous) to be on the train and kept telling us what a train says over and over and over again. Every time the conductor would blow the horn he'd put his little hand up to his ear and say "listen listen...train!!!"

After the train ride we headed in the zoo and towards the goat and cow-like creature exhibit (they had a name...zebu or something!). William thought it was hilarious when the baby (we'll call him) cow licked his fingers...we couldn't get him to keep his hands INSIDE the fence for anything! He hopped back and forth between the "cows", the goats, turkeys and llama. Twenty minutes later we had to carry our screaming child onto the next exhibit!

















It didn't take much for him to forget how unhappy he was with us for insisting he transition onto something else (transitions and two year olds...I'm telling ya'!). The turtles (or tortoise, but do you really want to argue with a toddler over semantics?!) were also a huge hit. One of the tortoises insisted on walking through some dead branches as opposed to around them and that upset Williams: "Uh oh UH OH...HURT HURT."













On we moved to the elephants, some monkeys, lots of snakes, a few gigantic crocodiles, and the Mall (no pictures there :)... I insisted we get one of those plastic molded figurines that my parents used to let us get when we were kids as well as the animal-shaped juice cups. William for some reason thought the plastic elephant was edible...I swear, we rarely eat ANYTHING out of a machine!!! Anyway, the day was a huge success and William had a ball!!! So much so we talked ourselves into a yearly membership. He's already asking to go back..."Zoo...Zoo...MAMIMALS!!!"