A Zoo day

Our zoo, the Henry Doorly Zoo, is going through some major renovations.  It's a nice zoo, but some of the buildings needed updating.  At the end of summer last year, they closed the aquarium (which is Landon's favorite) for the renovations.  It reopened this spring, and is pretty nice!  They added some new features like an area to pet some stingrays.  There is also an area that has a projection of water on the floor and when the kids step on it the water makes rings.  There's a new jellyfish area and a new gift shop.  They did a pretty good job with it and Landon was pretty excited when we actually got to go through it!

** Please forgive me with the pictures.  I was having a hard time capturing small, excited children in a dark area.  As we all know, my children don't hold still for very long so most of them came out a little blurry.

Heidi and I met Beth and Mason there with Landon and Sydney before all of this severely hot weather started happening here in the Midwest. (More on that later...) We had a lot of fun walking around together.  We visited the aquarium, the butterfly exhibit (which we had never been in before), and the monkeys. 

Landon was very excited to be at the zoo!  (This is still his "CHEESE!" face! :))

Visiting the fish at the aquarium

A cute little puffin that just wanted to swim his way through the glass.

Pictures with the penguins

This one is fuzzy, but it's just so cute.  Sydney and Mason hanging out in the bubble watching the penguins swim.

The butterfly exhibit is really cool!  We had never been in there because you have to leave strollers and such out in front of the building (trusting, I know!) and go inside.  They don't want you walking out with a pet butterfly hanging on your stroller. :)  You get to walk down a path while the butterflies fly all around you.  I must say that there is something about watching butterflies that brings you some tranquility.  Sydney really liked it too and got upset when we left.

They have bowls of fruit all along the paths for the butterflies to eat off of.

Beth and Mason...Mason even gave me a little wave.

I loved the colors on this one!  They were all so pretty!  

On to the monkeys we go!!

These monkeys are so funny.  Every time we visit them they are looking for you to throw them popcorn.  They know what's up! :)

The monkeys were pretty fun to watch, but the kids lost interest pretty quickly.  Heidi was telling me a story about when she brought her little boy, Hunter, to see the monkeys, one of them was super interested in him and was up by the glass hanging out with him for a while.  They don't do anything exciting like that when we go...they just sit around.  They've gotta be bored!