Cincinnati Zoo

Sunday was a much better day on our little weekend trip. After a 7 a.m. wake up time, the kids were well rested and ready to go. They kicked off the morning with a little jumping on the hotel beds. :)

We dressed and ate a continental breakfast downstairs in the hotel before packing up and checking out.

Today's trip was to the Cincinnati Zoo. I'd read in a parenting magazine some time ago that it was ranked somewhere in the top three zoos for children in the country. So I thought it would be fun to visit while we were in the area. It was absolutely AWESOME! And a considerably better value with more to see than the aquarium. Our zoo membership at Toledo provided us a 50% discount on admission tickets (hooray for the reciprocity program amongst zoos!) and so we got in for just $18.50!

Once again the forecasted rain held off for our visit - thank goodness! I think my favorite part about the zoo was just how lush and green it was. Actually, the name is formally "Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Gardens" so I figured there would be some impressive landscaping. Every animal exhibit was spacious and fancy. Walking on the paths between exhibits, you'd think you were hiking a rain forest! So I suppose if you're going to be a captive zoo animal, this is not a bad pad to have!

Sophie wearing her shades. :)

Most of the exhibits were large enough that you would continue walking along the path only to find another view of the animals from a different angle.

Love this profile shot of my guys.

A walk through the misting patio to cool off.

There's a funny story behind why I took this picture. Yesterday when we were standing in line at the aquarium and Craig and Will had just walked off to look at the river while I held our place in line, I heard a guy talking to his wife/girlfriend about Craig as he was walking away. (He obviously didn't know I was with Craig just a few people ahead of him.) He said (very complimentary) "Look at that guy walking with his little boy. He's got his kid, he's got his North Face back pack, he's got a water bottle on each side. How perfect. He's just ready to go." I just smiled when I heard that. But wait, there's more...

Then his wife/girlfriend said "Ya, he reminds me of Vin Diesel in The Pacifier." I almost laughed out loud. LOL :) I later told this to Craig and he was quite pleased that he was being compared to a man 3x his size who's in impeccable physical shape. So after I snapped the above pic, Craig posed for this one:

See all the pretty landscaping?

Super cute little penguins were just splashing around in the water to cool off.

In the children's area, there was a cool playground with signs all over that said "BE the animals." There were monkey bars, turtle shells to climb in, spider webs to climb on, etc. etc. It was cute.

Meanwhile, Sophie and I were playing a game of our own where I was making silly sounds while getting closer and closer to her face and then I'd give her tickle kisses on either side of her neck.

And she'd try to kiss me back every time.

Petting the goats.

There were peacocks just strutting around freely and making loud calls every so often.

Checking out a black bear.

Here's the black bear. I didn't get a picture of the next animal, but we saw a spectacled bear like on Diego next!

This lengthy exhibit was definitely my favorite. There are lots of parts to it. On this side, you can see one of the polar bears chilling out all the way to the left. The waterfall was very cool too.

Then here, we were behind a glassed in area which you can see a little further down, and this polar bear was just swimming laps back and forth in his cool pool.

See him? He's doing a back stroke. :)

Here's a better picture of the glass wall we were behind to view him.

And then just a little further down the path, we descended to this awesome viewing area of the polar bear's habitat. He was still swimming laps and it was so cool to see him from this angle. What an awesome display!

Rhinoceros

The great White Lions' pad. It was huge with an elevated walking path that surrounded the whole thing. They were just snoozing the whole time.

Walking the path around the lions.

When we came to these animals, Craig asked Will if he knew what they were. Want to know what he guessed? Impalas! They're actually called Bongos, but I was very impressed with Will's guess! I think they look like antelope and I know Will knows what an antelope is, but I didn't know he knew what an impala was!

For most of our zoo visit, Sophie rode in the carrier while Will rode unbuckled in the stroller and then hopped out to see each animal and walk a bit here and there. Then after a while we let Sophie face forward in the stroller and Will did a good job walking the rest of the way.

I know I'm biased, but I swear she's getting cuter every day. :)

And I think her eyelashes got longer again! Her hair has definitely grown recently.

Will and I noted that some flamingoes were standing on one leg and some were standing on two.

Here's another peacock with it's tail feathers fanned (from the back).

This zoo was quite hilly. Whenever we came to an uphill, Will and Craig raced up it to see who could get to me first.

When we came to the "Cat" house, Will said "I want to see the meerkats!" So funny that he remembers all these unusual animals names.

We arrived shortly before 10 and departed for home around noon. I fed the kids in the car again and Sophie dozed off immediately after eating. Will, once again, stayed awake the whole way home. Oh, and he stayed dry in his pull-up for the whole weekend! It's not ideal to have them skip naps for outings, but this is a rarity and they both did very well, considering. Tonight, Sophie was asleep by 6:30 and Will around 7:45. :)

Here's a quick shot of Sophie just after her bath modeling her new souvenir from the aquarium gift shop. No, not the ball, the ankle bracelet. It's so cute on her and she doesn't mind it!