Mim's Birthday Chapter 2: Mim goes to the zoo.

Mike and I planned on taking Mim to the zoo for her second birthday, but with his surgery just a few days before her actual birthday, we knew it would have to wait.  Well, this last weekend was the weekend.  After a week of rain, I was worried that we'd have to put the zoo trip off again, but Saturday was perfect.

Overall, I think Mim was pretty overwhelmed by the zoo.  I realized she's never really been around a crowd like that and I think it kind of threw her off.  There were a ton of people around and Mim did not know what was going on.  Once we actually got to the animals, she relaxed a little bit.  She loved the monkeys and adored the elephants.  We caught the elephant show shortly after it began and she just stared and stared at them.  I did, too.  It was pretty awesome.

{I know she looks worried, but she really did love the elephants.}

{We were pretty close to the mom elephant, but we still got to see her baby do a headstand.}

{Mim and Mike, fascinated by the elephants.}

Then we saw some more animals.  Rhinos were next, and since they're my very favorite, here's a picture:

{The rhino is the one in the background.}

We saw some more monkeys, then by the bear exhibits that currently have no bears because they're renovating (thank goodness) and across the bridge.

{Mim just adores my mom- she usually prefers her to me.}

They've been doing "Zoorassic Park" at Hogle Zoo for the past while, I suppose, which means that they have big animatronic dinosaurs everywhere.  Mim was ok with them (compared to some kids that burst out crying at the sight), but she kept her distance, especially once they started moving and making noise (and spraying water, in the case of the dilophosaurs).  Anyway, most were scaled down in size, except the tyrannosaur. 

{Pretty cool.  Its eyes even moved.  Mike is doing t-rex arms.}

Anyway, my picture taking was kind of falling apart at this point, so I don't have any pictures of the tigers (which Mim didn't really care about, anyway).  She did like these fake ones you could climb on, though:

{Will didn't like them as much.}

After that we saw the giraffes, which Mim liked, and waited to meet up with some of Mike's family.  Then we went on and tried to meet up with the rest of his family, but things got kind of messy and Mim was getting tired and hungry.  We did the butterfly house (no butterflies) and elephants again with them before they had to go, then met my family again for the train ride.  By then, all Mim wanted was for Grandma to snuggle her.

{Mim didn't care too much about the train ride, but she got a nice little rest.}

We went straight home pretty much right after that.  I couldn't believe that Mim didn't fall asleep in the car, but given her recent attitude towards naps, I shouldn't have been.  All in all, a pretty good day.  Next time we'll aim for a weekday instead so we don't have to deal with the crowds so much (the line to get tickets was insane as we were leaving- I'm just glad we got there early enough we didn't have to deal with that).  

Bonus:

Mim got a new baby doll from Trav and Debbie and Ari and Will before going to the zoo and is really excited about having three.  Right after we got home she lined all three up on the couch, gave them each a goldfish ("Here you go, here you go, here you go,") and then laid down to watch a Dora the Explorer with them.