We went to the zoo tonight, as it was the very last night for the Winter Wild activities. It was bitterly cold tonight, in the 30s I believe. We tried to bundle up the kids as best as we could.
This year all the activities were going on in the children’s zoo area, mostly outdoors. The carousel was playing Christmas-themed music. Sionna and I rode on a bench one time, while Connor rode on a creature (don’t remember which one – all the creatures are endangered species). Sionna was a little freaked out at first, then she really seemed to enjoy the ride. After that ride, Connor rode the carousel two more times.
It was really too numbingly cold to comfortably decorate cookies in the (outside) pavilion. Connor played with the goats in the petting zoo for all of two minutes. He also decided that he didn’t want to speak with “Safari Santa”. I asked him why not, and he replied, “Don’t you remember Mom, I talked to the Santa at Mr. Ray’s party last week, so I don’t need to talk to this one.” Ooo-kaaay!
We spent some time in the Reptile House, which was nice and warm. We always like to see the leucistic alligator, it’s really cool — it’s a white alligator with a couple of dark spots and blue eyes, which prevents it from being an albino, which is why it’s called “leucistic”.
Connor and John went to the Aquarium, while Sionna and I went to the Gift Shop, mainly to see if we could find any gloves for John. [The only gloves they had, which John *did* buy out of desperation (it really *was* cold), were black with a little shimmer. To which my brother said, later in the week – “Woo hoo hoo, we’ll just call you Michael Jackson!”]
I of course, had to buy some other stuff at the Gift Shop, but we did get 20% members discount that night.
Then we walked through Hermann Park looking at all the lights for about 30 minutes or so. We thought about eating out, but Sionna fell asleep really fast, so we just went through Wendy’s drive-through on the way home. All that exposure to cold air just really put me in the mood for a large chili!
All in all, the zoo and park were a lot of fun tonight.
