A day at the zoo

When you don't blog for a long time, you have a lot to catch up on. In early November, Mike had a day off for Veterans Day and we wanted to plan something fun. We thought about going to the zoo in Columbia, SC but with a 3 year old and a baby, driving almost 2 hours doesn't sound like the most ideal plan so we opted for a smaller and much closer zoo (sort of!) to spend the day.

Ella and I went to this same one when she was about 15 months old and it was fun but of course now that she is 3 1/2, she was way more into it. We boarded the horse drawn carriage and were on our way.

 This particular zoo is a little different than most, most of the animals just roam free and come right up to the carriage and you hold our your feed buckets for them.

 This little one was along for the ride and was pretty amused by all the animals and people feeding them as well!

 Of course one of the highlights was the zebra! Ella loves the movie Madagascar so she loved seeing the zebra and giraffe, unfortunately or maybe fortunately there was no lion or hippo to see.

Posing in front of the water buffalo

 There were lots of water buffalos with really long tongues and they just hold out their tongues and you put the food right in their mouths. So disgusting if you ask me but Ella thought it was pretty fantastic. I am glad I got to sit and hold Maddie and take the pictures.

 The giraffes were the most exciting animal and they were huge and came right up to the fence and ate right out of our buckets.

 One of my most favorite pictures EVER. I love how the giraffe is totally posing for the picture also. It almost looks like a fake background.

 After we got off the carriage, we went and had a picnic lunch (after lots and lots of hand washing and hand sanitizer to get those animal germs off us!) and played on the playground.

 Before heading home, we went to the petting zoo. Ella got really friendly with the donkeys, I think she wanted to go inside the fence and play with them!

It was such a fun way to spend the day together as a family. We will definitely be coming back for lots and lots more trips!