Fort Worth Zoo

So, this past week, Ethan, Kailey and I flew down to Dallas, Texas for the week. We spent the first half of the week with Eric's grandparents and then the rest of the week with my parents who had flown down for a business convention. We had such a wonderful time, enjoyed great weather, ate way too much good food, and had a hard time coming home. Anyways, we did so many fun things that it is going to take me awhile to post it all. So here is the first installment of our trip.

When Eric's parents found out we were headed to Texas, they decided to come down and visit also, so they could see the kids. Gary (Eric's dad) ended up making it a business trip, so he had to work during the day, but Annette (Eric's mom) got to hang out and have fun with us. Tuesday we took an excursion to the Fort Worth Zoo, which in my opinion is one of the best zoos (and I have been to a lot of them). It was so much fun, had so many interactive displays, you could see all the animals and they were fairly close...we just had so much fun. Eric's uncle and aunt were nice enough to play hooky from work and come spend the day with us. It was great to see them and to spend time with them.

One of Ethan's favorite parts of the zoo was where you got to feed the birds. They had an enclosed area with birds flying all around and you could buy little sticks that had bird food on them and feed the birds. Ethan was so much fun to watch as he was feeding the birds. At one point while we were feeding birds, I looked up and there were two birds sitting on my mother-in-law's head. I have a great picture of this, but have been banned from putting it on my blog. It was pretty entertaining to see!

Another fun part of the zoo was this interactive barn for kids. They had all kinds of fun things kids could do--slides, crazy mirrors, things to climb up in, you could milk a cow, etc. The one that Ethan liked the most is pictured at the right. You can't really see, but there is a wheel where Ethan is standing that says, "turn to make manure." When you turn the wheel, it makes balls come out of the cow's bottom, representing manure. You are then supposed to take the balls and put them in holes in front of these fake plants. Anyways, it is supposed to teach you that you use manure on plants, which helps them grow and then you eat the plants. Really good thing to teach kids--who wants to eat your vegetables when you know that cow poop helped them grow?? It is a good thing that Ethan didn't realize what the balls represented. Sometimes I wonder, who comes up with these exhibits??

We had such a fun time and the weather was so nice--it was the most perfect day to go to the zoo. We had lots more fun seeing the animals and there are plenty more pictures to look at in the slide show below. Stay tuned for the next installment of our Texas trip!!