Riley Does The Zoo

We took Riley to the Blank Park Zoo this past weekend. We had a perfect day with lots of sunshine. Perfect days means a packed zoo. We lathered Riley up with sunscreen, strapped her sun hat on and made our way through every exhibit. We went through the discover center where we encountered the Red Pandas. They were exactly as their species says: Red. Nothing too exciting. Riley liked looking at the fish swimming in the discovery center. Next, the Petting Zoo. No longer are the days when herds of smelly animals are roaming around aimlessly sniffing every person for food. All of the animals were pinned up. We fed the llamas food pellets and an ice cream cone (without ice cream) and stood in front of the big bull. Riley enjoyed touching the llama's nose.

Riley loved watching the penguins swim and wouldn't turn her eye away for a picture with Daddy.

She also loved the zebras. They came and ate right in front of where we were standing and she wouldn't take her eyes off of them. Riley's favorite animal of the day: Monkeys! The Monkeys are always my favorite too so we spent most of our time watching them. Several of them came and stood directly in front of us and Riley would just stare at them. Brett liked taking pictures of their red butts. He swears that he was taking a picture of the monkey behind the red butt. Hmmm. Lastly, Riley loved watching the otters swim up to the glass underwater.

Mom and Dad's favorite moment of the day: Watching the woman disregard the "stay on the path" sign in the Australian Exhibit. She and her son (maybe two years old) followed an emu (huge scary bird) all the way through the grass to the back fence. 15 minutes later we saw the same woman pulling her son back from the stream running through the Australian Exhibit. He was a foot away from joining the swans!

All in all, it was a great day at the zoo. We are taking Riley to the Omaha Zoo in July with her cousins. Hopefully she will love it then as much as she did this weekend!