Penguins, and Elephants, and Meerkats, Oh My!

First, before I dive into this new post, let me just say that I stand corrected. That "short while" I anticipated Will to need to build up his confidence to initiate walking turned out to be 2 days. On Saturday we practiced some more and I let him begin holding onto a piece of furniture while I stood a few feet away with my arms outstretched. He let go almost immediately and toddled over to me with that beautiful beginner's trot that's so cute at this age. About 8 steps is his max so far, but it's just so awesome to watch!

So today we visited the zoo, hence the title of this post. You may remember this is not Will's first visit to the zoo. But it's definitely the first that he actually noticed his surroundings and most of the creatures he was there to see. It was a beautiful day and we had been enjoying an unusually lazy weekend. So since Craig was going to be gone all day judging the Wood County fair queen contest, Will & I along with Will's Grandma Skees (whom he may have called "Ya Ya" today - potential new nickname!) spent a few hours checking out the zoo.

We learned what an alpaca and a sloth bear are, visited the children's petting zoo, tasted lemon ice, waved at and stared in awe of every animal we passed (Will's waving at everything now), and took LOTS of pictures.

Waving to passers-by.


Posing with one of many statues.


Waving to the penguins.


Baby Louie the elephant and his mother.



Watching the zookeeper feed the elephants.


Rhinoceros.


Posing on a turtle. I thought it was nice how the zoo had a squishy foam ground beneath all the statues knowing children would be climbing them for pictures.


This thing is real. We stared at it for several minutes before it finally blinked and it just sat there with it's mouth wide open not moving - creepy!


This handsome devil is an alpaca. Wouldn't he make a cute pet?


Will wasn't so excited about TOUCHING the animals.


Pure cute. Enough said.


Watching the hippos with "Ya Ya".


And he just has this fettish with sunglasses. Whenever we put them on, he gets a big cheesy grin on his face.


Enjoying some lemon ice and water in the shade.


I have a photo in one of my baby books of me sitting on this same statue when I was little. I'll have to dig that up and post it.


Our final stop was the Arctic Encounter. We saw the polar bears, walked into a pretend polar bear den, and posed with this scary guy:


It was a fun, exhausting day. And we can't wait to go back to see The Lights Before Christmas!