Zoo Passes and Vans are great!

We loaded up our van on Thursday for a wild adventure. We had 5 babes in car-seats, 3 mommas, 3 strollers, and enough "gear" to keep all of the mommas and babies happy for the trip. I love the size of this van. I used to think it was overkill, but we've used it to full capacity several times now. I hate driving several cars to go places as a group because much of the group experience is lost in transportation, but this van allowed all three families to ride together and enjoy the full spectacle of my children crying most of the way to Louisville. ;)


I'll also just say that babies in the van should always be buckled into the car seats or they may fall out of a non-moving van. (See my friend Deborah's blog for proof positive that falling out of a stationary van does in fact leave big ugly ouchies). Two of the five kids fell out of the van while we were getting car-seats situated.

After some crying fits by several of the children (two of which were mine - the other had a big ouchie on his head) we finally made it to the Lousivlle Zoo. We are members and we highly recommend becoming a member of your local zoo (or the closest one you have). Our family pass gets us in as often as we want for free, and we frequently get coupons for getting other people in too. For all 8 of us we only paid for one admission. It does help that non of the kids are old enough to be charged admission yet.

Although it was hot, we had a great time looking at the animals, watching the children interact with one another, and talking with other adults.

Here are a few highlights of our day: Kenna's first kiss - well really, this was not the first of the day heck I think Charlie may have even beat Jackson to the "first kiss", but you get the idea.



And for the "after the kiss" picture, you see how much she liked the Weber boys' kisses.

Morgan is hitting the stage where she realizes that she is "big" compared to babies, but that she is actually quite small when compared to adults and some animals. The first exhibit was of the orangutans. It was holding on to something above the glass and it was right up against the glass. When I heard her say "Mommy, get me out of here." I quickly undid the buckle of the stroller and picked her up to walk closer - then she yelled even louder "Mommy, get me outta here!" Ahh, now the dummy momma figures it out - she wants out of the building not out of the stroller.

After we decided to steer clear of exhibits inside of buildings/shelters, she was fine and back to her normal self of enjoying the animals. Just after seeing the giraffes up close and personal Morgan decided to ride this giraffe.

That look of wonder is one of the things I really love about that kid.