A Day at The Zoo

We have been promising Lauren since we moved here that we would take her to the zoo. Back in Oregon, we had a zoo membership and lived less than 20 minutes away from it, so we went ALL the time! But, we haven't been able to go here in North Carolina yet...mainly because it is a 2 hour drive to the nearest zoo. Well, we finally did it! Ryan had the day off on Friday for the 4th of July holiday, so after breakfast Friday morning, we packed up and hit the road.

The kids did fairly well on the car ride down. Lauren played her Leapster most of the way and Nolan played with toys and looked at some books. At one point, I did have to climb in the backseat and wedge myself between their car seats to help calm him down. But, after 2 hours in the car, we finally made it to the Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia, South Carolina!

This zoo was much different than the one in Oregon - the main difference being that the animals are all so close. Maybe this one was done before they tried to make zoos more of a "natural preserve"...but it was great for us because we got to see everything so close up. They also had an aquarium there with tropical fish, snakes and lizards (which Nolan loved). We got to ride on the carousel, play on the playground, have a picnic lunch at the gardens and take a tram ride. It was such a fun day for the kids and it was very cute to watch Nolan react to seeing all those animals for the first time. Here are some pictures from our zoo adventure:





Lauren "milking the cow" at the Farm






Posing with the statues





Nolan running around the penguin exhibit






Two very tired kiddos