The Zoo...With 20 Bazillion of Your Closest Friends

On Monday my friend Adri and I thought it would be a good idea to take our 8 kids combined, plus two kids of a friend of ours who is very sick with her pregnancy, to the zoo. Apparently two-thirds of the people who live in the city of Colorado Springs and the surrounding vicinity were thinking the same thing. I think the only people in the entire city who were not there that day were the group of our friends who had decided to go to Skate City instead. I parked in a parking lot that I didn't even know existed because I've always been able to park in the main lot before! I got super lucky and found a spot in this overflow lot right away, but Adri had to drive around for almost 30 minutes to find a spot...and to get that one she had to stalk a driver from the lot entrance.

But I'll tell you why the zoo is a popular place to go this time of year. It's not just that we parents are all trying to find something fun to do that gets us all out of the house on a warm spring break day so we no longer have to listen to our children bicker, it's also because the animals are out...and they are active!! Some of the big cats that I've never seen actually moving and not just snoozing the day away were actually quite spry!

So although it took us forever to locate two parking spots and navigating the crowds with a crowd of your own can be slightly stressful, I am so glad we went. The kids were happy and excited about the busy animals (me too!) and I always love spending time with Adri. She's a hoot!

We didn't do the giraffe crackers this time around because I completely forgot cash, but just because you can't view pictures from the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo without at least one of the giraffes (the zoo's snazzy showcase habitat)...here you go. Here's two-thirds of the kids we had with us with the zebras behind them. It's hard to see zebras and not be reminded of Ben, at 20-months-old visiting the Hogle Zoo in SLC, shouting, "Hey! Zebra!" over and over again, trying to get them to come to the fence.Always a popular feature...the animal-shaped benches. Our zoo does not have rhinos, although for some reason the boys think there are "white rhinos" there. Whenever I say we are going to the zoo they say, "Can we see the white rhinos?!" I don't have any idea why they think there are white rhinos there, or if that is even a real animal, but every time I have to say, "There's only the blue rhino bench. No living rhinos at all, sorry guys!" If you know where I can find a zoo with a white rhino exhibit, please let me know.

Here's Zach with the snow leopard behind him to the left in the window. Forgive the glare, but look how close it is! I don't think I've ever even seen this animal at this zoo before, much less up close to the viewing area!

And Josh and Luke with the tiger below in its moat. I have seen the tigers, but they are usually really far back in the enclosure, just sitting and staring with bitterness in their eyes over being animals in a cold zoo instead of the warm jungle.

They were actually quite playful, they were rolling around this big barrel that was floating in the water. It was a good, happy scene! Maybe they like snow.

Likewise for the bears. In our many visits, we have seen the grizzlies both active and sleepy. This visit however, they were in a part of their enclosure that I didn't even realize was part of their enclosure! Just lumbering around, la-de-dah. It's hard to remember those big, fuzzy cuties are scary, defensive, claw-out-your-brains-in-seconds GRIZZLY BEARS!

Luke said, "Bye bears!" when it was time to go. He'd love to be a zoo keeper!This O.C.D. otter kept swimming across the glass on top of the water, then down under the water, back across the bottom of the glass then {pop!} out he'd come! Just like that in front of where Ben is standing! Over and over and over, exactly the same, the entire time we watched. I was just starting to wonder if it was a fake otter, battery operated, placed there to please the zoo crowds, when it swam off and got out onto the rocks.

Luke loved this big, fat frog exhibit! I am taking the picture through the glass, so it's not a great photo, but Luke sat and counted the frogs, over and over, kind of like the otter. There were nine of them, beloved by Luke, every single one!

Hippos! When we walked in the gates upon arrival, I asked Luke what he wanted to see the most. And aside from the elusive white rhino that his brothers had been talking up, he wanted to see the hippos. Every time we'd leave one exhibit to head to another he'd ask if it was time to see the hippos. Sometimes when the answer was "not yet" I could see him trying to hold back tears! The hippos were the second to last exhibit we saw. Finally! I think Luke was happy to see them out and about, romping in the mud! Romping? Do hippos romp? Well, no, but they were moving, which is more than I can say I've ever seen them do before! Usually they are lying in the sun, next to a pile of poop. So this was a big improvement.

Last but not least...the monkeys! Always a hit. They never disappoint. A couple of them were getting a bit "romantic" so we decided to move on before we had to do a "facts of life" lesson.

I have to add that Zach was such a huge help on our visit to the zoo. I had Tommy in the Moby wrap on my front, so Zach offered to push the stroller. He pushed it throughout the entire zoo! Even up the monster hills. Ben was really helpful too, lifting Luke up so he could see over the rails and fences and into tanks. What great big brothers!

It was a super day at the zoo! We all left feeling very satisfied in our visit to the animals, as well as the great time we had with our friends. Unfortunately, we had to leave it all behind to go to Zach and Ben's dental cleanings. Not the most exciting reason to hasten away from the zoo.

In closing, let me just tell you that it is a BAD idea to get your kids in bed at 10:30pm the night before (extremely late for our boys), take them to the zoo (fun, but tiring), then to the dentist (for an hour) and still try to squeeze in a trip to the grocery store (stupid, stupid girl). It was all good until that last bit. Standing among the frozen foods, ten minutes into the shopping trip, I realized that maybe I should have listened to that little voice speaking to me before I entered the store, saying, "Don't do it! Just wait. Do it later." That would have been wise.

As we pulled out of the lot, having made our hasty purchases while making off-hand comments about "don't you just love spring break?" and something like "boys will be boys!" while rolling my eyes at the cashiers and bag-boys who were looking at me like I was insane and completely inept, at least ten things on the list forgotten or ignored because of the chaos going on around me, five children strapped into their car seats: three fighting and two making an odd scream-cry sound, I inhaled deeply focusing on the good part of the day. And then I had to chuckle. It was all I could do. Some days are wonderful, some days are terrible, and some--like this zoo/dentist/doomed-trip-to-the-grocery day--are a mixture of both. That is the world of parenting!