Zoo baby

While Dave golfed with his dad yesterday, Lucy and I decided to go to the zoo.  I tried to time it perfectly that she'd have her first nap on the way so she'd be ready to go when we arrived...instead, she stayed awake almost the whole time, falling asleep just before I pulled into the parking lot.  But no worries...I was able to get her from the car seat and into her stroller without disturbing her and she slept for about 25 minutes while I walked her around the zoo.

But when she woke up, she was wondering where in the heck we were!  And of course, the first thing she wanted to do was go see the giraffes!

 

   

Twice during our zoo visit we lucked upon an animal encounter and first it was with our buddies...we got to feed this giraffe a cracker!  When we got home and told daddy, "We got to feed the giraffe a snack!" she got an excited little grin on her face!


"Hey, you guys look really familiar!"



Soon it was time to stop and eat the lunch we packed...look at my big girl on the chair!  She just loves eating outside!  Yesterday was such a perfect zoo day, weather-wise, and there were plenty of other people enjoying it, but it really wasn't very crowded.  We got a good parking spot, we moved through the place in our stroller with no problem, we found a table very easily, and Lucy was able to run free frequently.  Perfect!


Lunch was good but now let's go meet some more animals!



She loves being "free!"

During one of her moments of "freedom," she was finding treasure (mulch and pine cones) in a wooded area and she was quite proud of herself!  She found multiple pine cones and gathered them all on the bench...then knocked them all back off...

She also had fun wandering in the "woods."  She kept turning back and grinning at me, waiting for me to stop her, because she knew she probably should not be back there...

The next animal encounter we happened upon was with the turtles.  Just like with the giraffes, as soon as we walked up to them, the zoo employee was saying that if you wanted to participate, you had to get in line because it was almost over...so we were one of the lasts in line again.  How lucky!

We got to see them chomp on some grass and leaves and were encouraged to touch their shells...Lucy was intrigued (and I tried to get her to say "turtle" but she was intrigued into silence, I guess) but didn't want to touch them.

One of her favorite parts of the day was when we went into the Lorikeet Landing and saw all of the colorful birds flying around.  She signed "bird" multiple times and her eyes darted across the place, keeping an eye on them! 
She also really enjoyed watching the fish and manatee:

She was in a great mood all day and had so much fun...every time we got to a fork in the path, I asked her which way we should go and she would point.  We walked in some circles and passed the same things many times but she's so cute with her little pointer and I like to let her make decisions sometimes!  At one point, she led us to a playground and she did some climbing and sliding which was great fun!

My happy baby

Again, I tried to time her second nap perfectly...I figured she'd go to sleep around 3:30 so at 3pm, we started making our way back to the parking lot.  We were just about to cross the bridge toward the elevators to take us downstairs and to the lot and I looked in at her and said something to her and she was definitely still awake.  By the time we'd made our way across the short bridge, a passerby said, "She is out!" so I looked down, and sure enough:

'Night, 'night, Lucy!