Changement Mama: Spring Break- Hogle Zoo Adventures

For a fun outing, my Dad took the Sowards and Harris families to The Hogle Zoo. It was fun to go back to this little zoo, as I had taken Emma there many times when we lived in Salt Lake City. We took a picture of Emma in the same place as another picture taken when she was 3.

She's got the whole world in her hands.

Now, my Dad is very savvy when it comes to working the annual family passes at amusement parks, museums, and zoos. Earlier that week, he took all of the grand kids to the dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point with his Grandparents pass. (They absolutely loved it!) He acquired another Granparents pass (apparently, these are very popular in Utah) at the gate of The Hogle Zoo, which included unlimited rides on the zoo train and carousel, so we immediately started enjoying these attractions.

The kids on the Zoo Train.

Part of Emma, Kailey, Stratton, Sasha, Shelton, Austin, & Jordan

After riding the train we headed over to the playground to let the kids run around and get out their excess energy before we tried walking around and keeping track of them while looking at the zoo animals. While playing, we began to notice little, intermittent rain drops, but tried to ignore them, and hoped they would subside despite the heavy, gray clouds that hovered over the zoo.

All the kids & Papa

On a giant spider- kind of creepy!

Emma & Kailey

Captured damsels on the giant spider web that is probably where the giant spider is headed towards.

Jenny & Caroline

Hot Mamas enjoying talk time, and still wondering if it was a good choice to leave all of the coats in the cars so that we didn't have to carry them around, as we are no longer in the stroller stage of motherhood.

After what seemed like a very long time, we decided to move on to go explore the other zoo attractions, mostly because the raindrops started getting more concentrated, and we feared that our zoo trip was doomed. Caroline went to get all of the coats out of the car, and we decided to brave it out, hoping for the best. As we walked deeper into the zoo, it seemed like everyone was headed in the opposite direction, towards the zoo exit. You are probably thinking that our day was soon to be over, but alas, remember that Grandparents pass my Dad had bought earlier? Unlimited rides on the zoo carousel, which was completely covered! We probably rode on that carousel 15 times, and just when the kids were growing tired of this, the rain stopped, and we got to enjoy the rest of the zoo. Lucky us!

Shelton rides the elephant with a smile.

Austin & Shelton hanging with the giraffe.

A funny thing: when we were at the giraffe exhibit, I noticed that one of the giraffe's (pictured above) was avoiding me. When I was outside, he went in. When he noticed me inside, he went out, but hovered near the doorway, and would come in briefly to eat. I started to wonder if he didn't like the furry leopard print lining of my coat, and was amused to find that he stayed inside with me after I took it off and hid it in my bag. That is when I took the picture above. Too funny!