Saturday {Zoo + Last Day of Travel & HOME}

Everyone slept hard (except mom, because she's mom) and felt rested and fresh Saturday (Sept 18) morning.  We showered the kids who hadn't showered the night before and had a great breakfast at our hotel.

Complimentary breakfast at a hotel means 2 things for a large family.  1.  you don't have to load and unload your children again which takes a long time.  2.  you can think of the room fee as minus about $40-50 because that's what it would cost to feed our crew a good breakfast out.  I love complimentary breakfast.  The dining room was pretty full but there was a big table outside just waiting for our little sweeties.  Complimentary breakfast for us means dad managing the table chaos while I make one thousand trips back and forth serving our crew, but we make it work and try to make sure the parents eat a little something, too, in the midst of it all.  The kids feasted on pancakes, yogurt, bananas, eggs, sausage, toast.  They love getting to have so many choices!

And then, since we were in St. Louis, we decided we just as well hit the zoo.  I had mistakenly thought that since you had to pre-order (free) tickets for your day at the zoo that it wouldn't be so busy even though it was a Saturday.  This was false, and so I was bummed about that.  We decided to see just the outdoor animals, and not go into any of the buildings.  The exception for that was that we hit the penguin cove first and they didn't have a line yet, so we went in that building.

The zoo was worth is for a lot of reasons, but the main one was seeing Evalynn's reaction to the real live animals in front of her.  I've worried about Evie a little, because she has not had many life experiences beyond her little bubble, and so I can see sometimes that she's not making connections to what we read in books/play toys with, to real life.

Her reaction to the animals was priceless.  So much so that I didn't take many videos or photos because we were all enjoying showing her the world.  She kept saying, "wook, Mama!  wook!"  Her eyes were huge when she saw bears, she was delighted at the penguins, and she couldn't get enough of the elephants.

A napping orangatun.

There was a little baby on this hammock that would stick his head up every few minutes but I never did capture a photo of it.

I've never been at the zoo when the polar bear wasn't in the water!  Sunning on a rock on this Saturday.

I love the penguins.  So. much.  Sure, they are stinky, but also I'm chubby so I'm usually hot and their habitat is cold, plus they are adorable.

Can you see the peek of her smile beyond Mike's hat?  She got splashed and she loved it.

The grizzly was being quite a cutie, also, peek-a-booing above his rock.

lazy lions...

I think the giraffes are pretty, too.

The riverwalk was the last thing we did before riding the train and leaving.  We were all pretty hot and tired by this point but the hippos and elephants didn't disappoint.

My original plan was to buy train tickets and ride to each station, get off, tour that area, and then load back and go to the next station.  This cuts down on walking/exhaustion, gives the kids the fun of the train, and helps us see everything without a lot of backtracking.  We've done this a lot of times.  We fold up the stroller at each station and put it in the seat with us.  Natalee was in her wheelchair, so we knew we'd get to sit at the front away from a bunch of people, but when I went to buy tickets they told us that they no long allow you to take fold up strollers on the train.  Wah, Wah, Wah.  I was pretty hot by the time we got unloaded and into the park - we were juggling a wheelchair and a stroller and were kind of a mess and this was the thing that about sent me to tears, but I reigned it in and we walked the park instead of riding.  The kids were all so big about missing the train ride that we parked the stroller and treated them all to a round trip ride after we got out of the riverwalk and before we left the park.  It took them a long time to strap Natalee's chair in and I was surprised at how the rest of us just sit willy nilly in our rows but the person in the wheelchair has 4 wheel straps + a lap belt.  LOL.  

It was worth it.  Everyone loved it except that Natalee said she felt like we were going really fast.  I suppose being in the very front made it feel different for her.  This was another fun first to give Evalynn and Zayden said he didn't remember being at the zoo when we were there last time, so it was especially exciting for him, too.

In all, we spent about 3 1/2 hours at the zoo.  This is the least amount of time I've ever spent at the STL Zoo before, but it was enough for us for this day.  We hit the bathrooms for a potty break for all and good wash up before heading out to load up.  Obligatory "smile for mom" photo.

Everyone was hot and tired by the time we got loaded back into the bus.  We passed around the sanitizer and drove through and bought all the big kids two fast food sandwiches because they all declared they were starving (fast food = such a treat for these kids who don't get it often).  Little Evalynn fell fast asleep before we got out of Forest Park and stayed asleep through the drive through and all the way into Iowa!  Over 3 hours.

We drove the rest of the way home without stopping, except to grab pizzas for supper in town (because there were no groceries in the house and I had zero desire to try to cook).

We made it in between 5-6 and were so glad to have had our adventure and equally glad to be home safely!