Busy Week- Part 1

This last week was very busy, but in a fun kind of busy. :)
We did not have camps or anything, so we did what we wanted.

It started on Wednesday. It was zoo member appreciation day, so we spent 7 1/2 hours at the zoo!
We went with some fellow friends/ homeschoolers and we purposely went at 9:30 to beat the 102 degree heat by 1 pm.  We started out with some free train rides, visited the petting zoo, ate lunch, dug in the archaeological dig, saw "Sharks" on the IMAX (which I had to take Christian out of because he was not getting his way PLUS it was naptime.) After the IMAX, we visited the gift shop and since everything was 30% off, I let the kids get one thing each. 

After this our friends left because it was 3:30 and I fully intended to leave to, but then I remembered that from 2-7 pm, they were going to have certain buildings open, so we could see "behind the scenes."  We walked out of the gift shop and right back in through the main gates of the zoo!  We went down to the aquarium and went "behind the scenes." We got to touch the artifical coral and see the scuba diving equipment. We also got to see the top of the main aquarium in that building, there was even a turtle swimming on the top.

After the aquarium, I had told the girls I would buy them concessions (again 30% off), but then I saw that the veterinarian clinic was open. Knowing my girls like animals, I decided to take them through this building too. We saw where they decided what to feed the animals, saw an experiment freezing grapes and raisins, saw plants from around the world growing in a little nursery, saw the same plants under a microscope, saw the surgery room, guns that they use to tranquilize the animals, and the final room was the most fascinating. This was the room where they take xrays and they were showing xrays of various animals from the zoo. Megan was very interested! We stood there awhile and talked with the vet tech and saw images from an armadillo, turtle, penguin with a quarter in his stomach, snake with eggs, and many more. We had a good time guessing which animal it was, sometimes we were right, sometimes we were not. 

After this we headed to the concessions.  We purchased some strawberry frozen ice and sat down to enjoy them!  When the girls were done, they went and went down a huge bounce house slide they had set up in the main dome plaza.

We wanted to go see one more "behind the scenes" building. This was the giraffes, but on the way to the giraffes, we got stopped by a magic show put on by a clown! This really interested the kids, so we stopped and participated.  By the time the magic show was done, the girls were pretty red and sweaty and it was almost 5 pm.  I looked at them and said, "I know I said we could go see the giraffes, but I think it would be a good idea to head home. You girls look pretty hot and it would be quite a walk to the giraffes yet." After a little convincing, we got in our car and headed home! What a great day at the zoo!!