Minnesota Zoo

On Monday morning we went with the church playgroup to the Minnesota Zoo.  It was such a fun day!  I didn't realize that so much of the zoo was indoor (which was great because it was snowing!).  We only went outside once for a very short time to see the Minnesota Trail animals.   It was cold, so we buzzed through quickly.

This picture turned out pretty bright, but here are our friends that met us there. It's so great to have such a good group of moms and kids to get together with periodically.

Maida loved the flamingos and keeps asking to go back to the zoo to see the pink birds!

This is Maida's friend Jake.  Jake was showing Maida a feather that he had found in a tunnel that they were crawling through.

As part of the Minnesota Trail, the kids got a paper with a place to put a stamp for each animal that they found.  Jake helped Maida stamp her paper.

Skogen sat in the stroller a lot better than I thought he would.  He loved watching the people and all the action.  He also loved all the graham crackers I fed him to keep him entertained!

Not only did we see a ton of animals, but we also got to watch a scuba diver feed some fish, the shark feeding, and a bird show.  This picture was taken at the shark feeding and right after I took this, Jake and Maida started taking turns kissing each other on the cheeks.  Wendy (Jake's mom) and I got a kick out of it.  At one point, they were laying on the ground trying to kiss the other, but trying not to let the other kiss them, which Wendy had to eventually go break up because they were in the front row of a quiet show!

Some of the highlights of the day for me were watching the scuba diver, feeling how close the flying birds got to our heads during the bird show, eating lunch with Wendy and our good talks, laughing with Kim at one of her recent zoo experiences, watching the kids hold hands while they ran through the zoo, hearing a bald eagle caw, watching a stingray eat, and realizing several times throughout the day how blessed we are to have such a great group of Christian friends to hang out with.