Zoo Fun

 Last Saturday, we had an all-day family date.  SO MUCH FUN! (and lots of pictures!)

It started at 6am when we all woke up to head to Columbus, Ohio to visit the temple. We made it to the temple with no car sickness-- yay!  (Every time we've gone before, Naomi has gotten sick on the way there and we've had to pul over on the side of the road to clean her up.  But this time-- we were extra blessed!)

Columbus, Ohio Temple for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

As soon as we could see the temple (shortly before 9am), Naomi pointed excited to the temple and said, "Jesus house!"  I was so excited to know that she recognized the building for what it was.  We had never called it Jesus' house, we'd only referred to it as the temple, but she knew!  (Really, I think she confused Angle Moroni on the top of the temple with Jesus, and decided that if Jesus was on top of the house, it must be His.  We tried to explain that it was Angle Moroni, but she continued to point and say, "Jesus."   Either way, she knew it was the House of the Lord; and Brad and I are very proud of our smart munchkin!)

Brad caught a perfect profile shot of munchkin looking at the flowers

I went in first while Brad stayed outside with Naomi to explore the temple grounds.  Afterwards, I came out and switched with Brad so he could do some work while munchkin and I had lunch and walked around the temple.

Around 12:30pm we headed to the Columbus Zoo-- the rated #1 zoo in the country, mind you. We wanted to show munchkin lots of animals (and i was secretly hoping all the walking would help move me closer to getting Baby Ruthe Maedean here sooner-- it didn't work).  Munchkin fell asleep in the car on the drive from the temple to the zoo, so we let her keep sleeping after we got there for about 30 minutes.  It was hardly a nap at all for her since she normally naps for about 2 hours, but Brad and I were excited to show her the zoo and knew she could sleep after visiting the zoo.  So a 30-minute mini-nap it was...
and then a super exciting and exhausting trip around the zoo... (We were planning on staying til the zoo closed at 5pm, but we would end up leaving around 4pm because munchkin got too tired and cranky. Yeah, aren't we awesome parents?!)  :-(

she loved petting the goats

she had to pet a goat of every color...

this sweet goat, when munchkin started to "brush" her by sawing back and forth, just turned to look at her as though thinking, "you've never done this before have you?  ok, make it quick!"

it's a "BYU Kitty"!  

up close with a polar bear!

one of munchkin's favorites-- a snake!

taking a break from all the walking...

trying out a bench... she's upset that mommy and daddy won't sit down with her.

But it was totally worth it!  Munchkin had a blast seeing all the animals. And Brad and I had a blast watching her meet the animals.  We decided pretty early that we'd let her set the pace-- after all, we were there to let HER see the animals and wanted her to have fun.  We didn't want to be those parents dragging their whining kids around the zoo telling them to hurry up-- nobody has fun when that happens.  Well, munchkin pace is really REALLY slow... we only got to see about 1/4 of the zoo.  Luckily, we got a membership, so we can go back as much as we want for the next year and not pay anything extra!

resting her tired feet :-)

sometimes, we wondered if we actually came to the zoo to
try out everything she could sit on...