a trip to the minnesota zoo

All weekend I told the kids we would go The Minnesota Children's Museum on Monday to see the Thomas the Train exhibit. I hyped it pretty well. Unfortunately museums are closed on Monday's...a fact my sister gently reminded me of just as we were about to hop in the car. After tears and promises to go on Tuesday, we decided to seize the day and pack a picnic for the Minnesota Zoo.

Rory had recently taken the kids to the zoo and came home raving about how impressive the zoo has become. He likened it to Epcot (a pretty high compliment!) and commented on how each exhibit area has a whole theme...the architecture of each building matches where the animals are from, the animals are grouped with animals you'd see all in a particular region and the exhibits are nicely designed. I was excited that he was so enthused and was eager to get back myself.

The zoo was awesome as ever, but the biggest change that I noticed this time was my kids. Oh my. They are getting so big. And helpful. I don't think I'll bring the stroller anymore. It was a pain to push, and no one really sat in it for very long. Ivar and Elsie are the perfect zoo-visiting age and the day together was so, so fun. I was so aware of our life stage right now...we don't require a whole lot of gear and on the whole are pretty low maintenance. It was really great.

We played a game in the aquarium, looking at the pictured fish and trying to find it in the tank. The kids loved this game and we could have stayed for ages.

The current favorites for my kids were the penguins (they're by the rocks above, but clearly didn't make the picture...I was obviously more into photographing my kids than the animals!), turtles and the monkeys. They also loved playing in the bee hive play space and they each touched a snake. I didn't, but I was proud they did.