Zoo day!

When I was in McDonald's a few weeks ago I spotted a stack of flyers offering buy one adult admission get one child free. A few of the zoos in the area were listed, and since I had never been to Binder Park Zoo in Battle Creek and that was on the list, I thought that we should go (especially since kids admission is normally$10!). My Mom took the day off from work and we headed out on last week Tuesday, before the rain set in for the week and before the twins headed back to school. We had a great day, though in the morning none of the animals wanted to come out and see us. And it seems that the giraffes are all pregnant or just had babies so there are only a few giraffes available to feed. By the time we got to the giraffes they weren't hungry and the zoo wasn't even selling the food since the giraffes wouldn't come over and eat. Still we had an awesome day. Here are some of the highlights:

Tori's not a cowgirl, she's an antgirl!

- Matea was fascinated by all the different animals. When she'd see one she'd get all excited, point, and start yelling at them. Then she'd look at us like, "Did you just see what I saw? There's something over there!" and point and yell until we acknowledged it too. I wasn't sure she was going to like the zoo but she did!

- In the children's area we got to feed baby goats that were pretty aggressive. The minute you held your hand out they snarfed the food and followed you around. The kids weren't sure about that at first, but then were okay. Matea liked them though.

Two seconds after this Eli was running for the exit . . .

The baby goat butting Matea didn't seem to phase her.

-Also in the children's area there was a statue of a cow. When she saw it, Matea got all excited and started going, "moo moo moo." The kids climbed on it and thought that was hilarious! There was also a slide in the children's section, which Matea was quite perturbed she couldn't go down.

Moooo!

Eli's turn down the slide!

We found a baby elephant too.

- There was a tunnel under the rabbit habitat that let you pop up in the middle and then come out the other side. The kids loved going through that, and Matea loved seeing them pop up in the middle. She was completely fascinated!

What do you see, Matea?

It's a Tori in a cage!

- When we saw the ring-tailed Lemur, Lexi said, "Hey, they've got a King Julian!" He's the lemur king from the Madagascar movies. All the other kids around were saying the same thing, which amused me.

- We went to ride the carousel and spotted a painted horse with a Michigan "M" on it and a wolverine on its back. I tried to convince Eli to ride that one, but he told me he wanted to ride the horse with the baseball field on it. I didn't know what he was talking about, but he led me to a horse  . . . that was green and white . . . and had a big "S," that did indeed look a bit like a baseball field, on it. I calmly explained that the horse wasn't a baseball horse, but a Michigan State horse, and Daddy and I went to Michigan (translated: no way was he riding a Michigan State horse!). Once he understand that it wasn't a baseball horse he didn't want to ride it anyway and chose a tiger cub that was next to Tori's Siberian Tiger.

My tiger is fun!

The shunned Michigan horse.

- When we got off the carousel we saw kids in line with THE MOST AMAZING facepaint I had ever seen. The kids immediately wanted it, and even though it was very expensive I decided to spring for it. We had brought our lunch and we weren't going to hit the gift shop so that was their treat. After a little painting we had two fearsome tigers (with glitter) and a beautiful butterfly. The facepaint was TOTALLY worth it - it made the kids day, they looked amazing, and they had fun pretending to be their animals all day long!

I thought I wanted my face painted, but now I'm not so sure.

Our tiny tiger! 

Tori giving me her "pouty tiger" face as she called it.

The prettiest butterfly I've ever seen!

Watch out, the animals escaped!

These animals started a band.

Who knew tigers and butterflies liked ice cream?

We ended up staying the whole day, though Matea was very cranky by the end (she wouldn't nap at all!). On the way home a tiger and a butterfly took a short snooze and Matea conked out. Only the Eli-tiger stayed awake (through sheer determination to NOT take a nap).  We had a great time and I'm already looking forward to visiting Binder Park Zoo next year too!