Abigail, Henry and Johanna: John Ball Zoo

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

John Ball Zoo

On Saturday, June 16, Colin was working and the kids and I wanted to knock something off our 2012 Summer To-Do List. We narrowed it down a bit and the kids really wanted to go to John Ball Zoo. It was 90+ degrees outside but since that's what they really wanted to do we packed things up and headed toward Grand Rapids. Johanna rarely uses a stroller anymore but I dusted one off for this trip. I knew that she would get tired and hot so we packed the stroller, water bottles, a few snacks, sunglasses and headed out. We arrived at John Ball and realized it was "Reptile Day" at the zoo. It only happens once a year and we hit that one day. There were lots of reptiles set up in the admin building for the kids to see, touch and hold. It was a great start to the trip!

We continued on with Abby and Henry as our leaders. They LOVED looking at their maps and telling me where to go next. They were very serious about crossing off the animals as we saw them and making sure we saw them ALL. They also loved reading about the animals, seeing which ones were near extinction, etc. It was so cool to see the zoo through THEIR eyes.

I let the kids feed the birds and it was a highlight of the day. I thought it would freak me out, but it was actually really cool!

Abigail did a big report on chimpanzees right at the end of the school year. She wrote a paper and did a poster full of pictures and facts. She was super excited to see the chimps at the zoo. Here she is pointing to one so we could send a picture to her teacher.

This Spider Monkey was hilarious! He was inside a cage and when we went to take it's picture he plastered himself up against the glass like this. Cracked me up!

Notice the fluffy in Johanna's hand? It WAS her favorite fluffy ever. We left it somewhere at the zoo, never to be found. This is my last picture of Johanna and her prized fluffy. :)