Daddy's First Adventure to the Zoo

Saturday June 4 I had big plans to wake up early and get to the zoo by 8:00am so we could spend the morning and eat breakfast with the lions. Of all the days that Elle decided to sleep until 8:15 - she picked the one day where we needed to be out the door by 7:30am! Oh well - while we didn't get to spend the morning with the lions - we still made it to the zoo. Elle was so excited to show Lee all her favorite animals. Lee hadn't been to the zoo in probably 20 years so he was loving every minute of it! This was Lee's first time at the zoo with Elle and I'm not sure who had more fun...Lee being lead around by Elle or Elle getting to play tour guide to her daddy!

Elle's favorite animals are the birds. She wanted to go there first (after we made a brief stop by the sea lions). I love the first picture because when Elle hears something for the first time, she usually points to her hearing aids and then will sign or say whatever she hears. She obviously heard those birds talking!

Telling the Eland to "come here come here" - the funny part was that the big Eland that you can kind of see in the background did start to walk up to the fence when Elle was telling it to "come here come here."

In all the times that Elle and I go to the zoo, we have never once ridden the carousel. I always ask and Elle always tells me no - so we move on. Lee wouldn't hear of not riding the carousel so we bought our tickets and slowly made our way around to pick out which animal Elle was going to ride. She was not a happy camper - so Lee decided to let her sit on a very unassuming log with a snake wrapped around it as her first carousel ride. The other animals were just too much for our little one. She was telling Lee "up please up please up please" for the first few minutes of the ride but once the ride stopped - her reply was "again! more! again please!" She told us she wanted to ride the turtle - so we bought more tickets and this time - Elle thoroughly enjoyed the entire ride!

The pictures don't do her excitement justice - she really was loving riding on the turtle

saying hi to the elephants

Lee and his tour guide

I just love this picture - lee had his leg propped up on the edge while they were looking at an iguana. of course elle had to mimic her daddy....too funny!

I just love the zoo and hope we can get back a few more times before Elle's next surgery. We see something new and exciting every time we go. I am so glad that Lee was able to be with us and share in Elle's excitement and amazement at the animals! Now he knows why the hour long trek down there during rush hour during the week days is totally worth it!