A Great Day at the Zoo!

We love going to a zoo, and my favorite zoo to visit is the Birmingham Zoo.  There's  so much to do and so much to see that you should plan to spend the day there.

Before we go to the zoo, we try to eat a good meal.  The food at the zoo is a little expensive so eating before we go is one way we try to avoid that additional expense.  Also, it just so happened that this day was special. . . Father's Day.  And anyone that knows Dave knows that he loves pancakes . . . Ihop here we come!

We headed to the zoo after eating a huge meal of eggs, pancakes, bacon, sausage, and french toast.  Yum!

Because it was Father's Day, Dave got in the zoo free.  We purchased the armbands for the boys that allows them unlimited access to ride the train, carousel, and play in the foam area of the children's play zone.  The armbands were very reasonable at $7 each.  Considering the train tickets and carousel tickets are $2.50 a piece and my children rode the carousel at least 10 times . . . I got my money's worth.  Not to mention the foam area.  But I'll tell about that in a minute.

The boys loved the animals.  We saw the birds and reptiles first.

The strangest looking bird we saw . . .

Then we went for a train ride.  

It was a really good train ride.  

The conductor shared so much information about the zoo and animals as we circled the zoo stopping periodically so we could see the animals.

When we disembarked from the train, we were just in time for the sea lion show.

This was a great show.  I love animal shows like this so I really enjoyed it.

After the sea lion show, the boys were anxious to get over to the children's play zone so we headed over there.  Dave and I needed a cool place to sit and rest anyway.

The zoo has this fun splash pad and foam area . . .

The armband covers playing in the foam area too.  

All three boys LOVED the foam area and the splash pad.  Here all 3 of them are right under the foam dispenser . . .

They would get all covered in the foam bubbles and then go to the splash pad to rinse off . . .

And the place next to the splash pad/foam zone is nice and shaded.  Perfect place to sit and relax while your children wear themselves out.

And surprisingly, after a while of playing, all 3 boys came up and said they were ready to move on to other parts of the zoo.

The Carousel was right next to the play area so we spent a lot of time there.  

The boys kept wanting to ride it.

Mostly because the guy running the carousel kept "scaring" the boys and they Loved that.  It became a game to see if he could sneak up on them and "scare" them.  

Did I mention the Alabama Wilds area that has a petting zoo?  Yes, even though we have goats and chickens and kittens and dogs, it's still fun for the boys to pet and play with the animals at a petting zoo.

And part of the Alabama Wilds is a cool zip line you can do.  It costs a little money ($16) to do it or you can buy the armband that includes everything as the other armband plus the zip line for $20.  We weren't sure about the zip line so we didn't buy that armband. 
All three boys wanted to do the zip line once they saw it, but Shane didn't weigh enough.

It was like 4 or 5 different zip lines you do as a part of the course.

It looks like fun, doesn't it?

Dave and I thought we would try it too.  

Here's me getting ready to do it.

And here's me backing out and climbing down the ladder.  :)

But Dave didn't back out.  Nope he embraced it totally.  

After the zip line, we set off to see the rest of the zoo.  First the Predators:

And the boys rode the camel:

Then we went to the Savannah area:

Then the Primates:

And then finally the Rhinos and Elephants:

At this point, the Zoo was closing and I think we might have been the last ones to leave because the other people leaving with us were zoo employees!  Ha!

Anyway, the Birmingham Zoo is awesome and fun and definitely deserves an entire day to fully enjoy which is how it was for . . . 

                               the Ferrell boys and me!