trip to the zoo!

We made another trip to the zoo, this year we got to take Luke with us and I wasn't pregnant so it was enjoyable in multiple new ways. Taylie took it upon herself to show Luke around the zoo, since she is a self proclamed expert.

...love this girl :)
It was a totally different experience this year with Taylie a whole year and a half older. She knew what all the animals were and she knew what she wanted to see. First we stopped at the monkeys, because Luke loves monkeys!

Luke loved the monkeys! When he saw these little guys running around he would clap his hands together and say "SNAP!". ( This comes from a song that he sings with Grandma Brooks: 3 little monkeys swinging in the trees, teasing Mr. Crocodile 'can't catch me! can't catch me!' along comes Mr. Crocodile quiet as can be then...SNAP!...and so on and so on...) He saw the monkeys and clapped his hands and yelled SNAP! I thought it was hillarious that he was waiting for something to come and eat the monkeys. :)

Taylie and her favorites, the elephants! There was a new baby elephant this year that was SO darn cute!

me and Luke with the elephants

This is Taylie's favorite part of the day. She had been telling us for weeks that she wanted to ride an elephant. I thought we were going to run into a problem when we saw the actual elephants and she wanted to ride it, but she didn't say a word until the merry-go-round came into view. Once I caught on to her train of thought, it was an easy wish to fulfill. :) I love how easy she is to please!

Luke actually tried to jump off a few times...he didn't really get into it that much. He was more impressed when I told him he could ride a monkey next time.

Do you all rememer this picture from the last trip...

Well, here is the updated version! It makes me sad to look at this and see how big she got in such a short time.

and of course we tried to get one of Luke, but he was being difficult as

usual so this is the best we got.

Luke is all about the monkeys! He loved the tigers too but they were all being lazy and sleeping so we didn't get any good pictures of them. He thought this was pretty cool though.

and you remember this guy from the last visit? The water squirting elephant...

This year I think it was a little early in the season for the water to be on, so when it was activated all it did was snore! Because of the lack of interesting responce from the elephant, she moved past it much quicker this year.

Luke's favorite part of the day:

LUNCH!

In the gift shop, Taylie found the animal masks (obviously) and she put it up to her face and said:

"Mom...where did you go...BOO!" I laughed out loud and had the whole place looking at me :)

We asked Tay what souviner she wanted to take home and this is what she picked out:

The GINORMOUS elephant! This time, Taylie had everybody around her who heard laughing. She asked so sweetly "Mom, can I have that one? Pleeeeeeeease?" When I told her that it probably wouldn't fit in the car, she opted for a snake instead.

We had such a fun day! Taylie could have stayed all day and she wanted to, but Luke was tired and so were Jacob and I, so the vote was 3-1 against staying. We went home. Very tired. Taylie asked if after she took a nap if she could go back.... *sigh* If I only had a little bit of her energy!