Amelia's first trip to the zoo.
The weather was great yesterday, and it was expected to be great again today. So, suspecting that great weather days would soon only be a dream I decided today would be the perfect day for Amelia's first trip to the zoo.
My plan had been to get up early, hit the road at eight, and arrive at the zoo shortly after it opened at nine. My thinking was that if we left for the zoo early we could come home around two o'clock and Amelia could get her full afternoon nap in and I could get some homework done this evening.
Well, that was a lovely plan.
Instead, we left here at 9:30 and stayed at the zoo until closing. We then made the relatively short drive over to the Cheesecake Factory and arrived home about 12 hours after we left.
Amelia was a wonderful baby all day (especially considering how tired she must have been). One of the first things we did at the zoo was feed the giraffes. Amelia was not too keen on feeding these long-necked horses. In fact, she seemed a little put off after the first one stretched toward her when she held out a piece of sweet potato.
Amelia's favorite animals at the zoo included the exotic Mallard ducks, the fish, sea lions, penguins and the goats at the petting zoo. We saw some bunnies in a bunny house and Amelia got so excited she started begging, "Down, down." I'm sure she would have crawled right up the ramp to the elevated bunny house if I had put her down in the pen.
Amelia did take one decent nap during the day. Poor sleepy girl fell right to sleep in mommy's arms while we were waiting to get into the dolphin show. She slept through the fun "rev up the audience" Macarena / YMCA / Chicken Dance songs (Mike made the comment that it was almost like experiencing our wedding reception all over again). The dolphin show was almost worth the free admission (though we all liked the Indy zoo, this was not exactly a Sea World, San Diego, dolphin show). As tepid as we found the dolphin show, Amelia thought it was really cool to wake up in a big stadium-type room and see dolphins swimming and jumping down below.
And while the show was kind of weak, I have to say that the dolphin observation dome was really cool.
Another highlight of the trip for me was holding Amelia while she rode the carosel for the first time. We chose a lovely dolphin to ride. Amelia was NOT happy about being on this false dolphin's back. She fussed and squirmed and asked mommy, "up, up!" but I was certain she would enjoy the ride once it started moving. It took a little while, but eventually Amelia became relatively comfortable on the merry-go-round and, in true Amelia form, she fussed when we had to leave the ride behind.
So, we all had a great day. Amelia absolutely loves animals, but she is respectfully cautious around critters of all kinds. She didn't even reach out to pet the guinea pig at the "animal encounter" until she had watched the little guy for a while and had determined that it was all right. I was, in fact, a little concerned that the zoo would be too much for her when she froze at one of the first animals we encountered and clung to mommy in fear...the lemurs were really loud and their yelling scared her.
I hope all of you enjoy the images we brought back from the zoo as much as we enjoyed making them. We took tons of photographs and got some great mini-movies. We will share them with you via e-mail (and maybe here) little by little throughout the week.
Talk at you again soon,
Lisa
My plan had been to get up early, hit the road at eight, and arrive at the zoo shortly after it opened at nine. My thinking was that if we left for the zoo early we could come home around two o'clock and Amelia could get her full afternoon nap in and I could get some homework done this evening.
Well, that was a lovely plan.
Instead, we left here at 9:30 and stayed at the zoo until closing. We then made the relatively short drive over to the Cheesecake Factory and arrived home about 12 hours after we left.
Amelia was a wonderful baby all day (especially considering how tired she must have been). One of the first things we did at the zoo was feed the giraffes. Amelia was not too keen on feeding these long-necked horses. In fact, she seemed a little put off after the first one stretched toward her when she held out a piece of sweet potato.
Amelia's favorite animals at the zoo included the exotic Mallard ducks, the fish, sea lions, penguins and the goats at the petting zoo. We saw some bunnies in a bunny house and Amelia got so excited she started begging, "Down, down." I'm sure she would have crawled right up the ramp to the elevated bunny house if I had put her down in the pen.
Amelia did take one decent nap during the day. Poor sleepy girl fell right to sleep in mommy's arms while we were waiting to get into the dolphin show. She slept through the fun "rev up the audience" Macarena / YMCA / Chicken Dance songs (Mike made the comment that it was almost like experiencing our wedding reception all over again). The dolphin show was almost worth the free admission (though we all liked the Indy zoo, this was not exactly a Sea World, San Diego, dolphin show). As tepid as we found the dolphin show, Amelia thought it was really cool to wake up in a big stadium-type room and see dolphins swimming and jumping down below.
And while the show was kind of weak, I have to say that the dolphin observation dome was really cool.
Another highlight of the trip for me was holding Amelia while she rode the carosel for the first time. We chose a lovely dolphin to ride. Amelia was NOT happy about being on this false dolphin's back. She fussed and squirmed and asked mommy, "up, up!" but I was certain she would enjoy the ride once it started moving. It took a little while, but eventually Amelia became relatively comfortable on the merry-go-round and, in true Amelia form, she fussed when we had to leave the ride behind.
So, we all had a great day. Amelia absolutely loves animals, but she is respectfully cautious around critters of all kinds. She didn't even reach out to pet the guinea pig at the "animal encounter" until she had watched the little guy for a while and had determined that it was all right. I was, in fact, a little concerned that the zoo would be too much for her when she froze at one of the first animals we encountered and clung to mommy in fear...the lemurs were really loud and their yelling scared her.
I hope all of you enjoy the images we brought back from the zoo as much as we enjoyed making them. We took tons of photographs and got some great mini-movies. We will share them with you via e-mail (and maybe here) little by little throughout the week.
Talk at you again soon,
Lisa
posted by Lisa, Mike, Amelia, and Diana at 9:34 PM
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