Henry Doorly Zoo

I love this place!  I just looked this morning and Choice Travel rated it  #6 in the top 10 zoo’s in America, while Yahoo Travel rated it #1!  We used to make a yearly trip to the zoo with Russ and Laura in the fall.  Since they had moved to Michigan, we hadn’t been to the zoo as a family.  Amirah asked regularly when she was going to get to go.  The kids had a Friday off  in February and it was supposed to be sunny and in the upper 30’s so we decided to make a last minute decision to go.  We had so much fun!  It cost us $77 to get in and that was with the off-season discount.  Not your cheapest family-date.  We decided to upgrade to a season pass for $20 more.  It will be good until February of next year.  After realizing we couldn’t pull Amirah away from the exhibits, we decided it was a good thing we have a pass and will be going back. 

The monkey’s are probably everyone’s favorite animal to watch.  They were particularly entertaining this visit. 

I had to get a picture of this monkey, because there is a very funny story that goes along with it.  These monkey’s were in an exhibit along with a couple of other monkey’s that looked different than them.  Caden is looking down at the monkey’s and says to Romee, “Oh, those red monkey’s look pretty cool!”  Bryan over hears the comment and begins looking for a red monkey.  He sees brown ones and yellow(ish) ones, but can not find the red ones.  Romee completely ignores the comment all together.  After a long pause, he looks at Romee again and says, “Romee, those red monkey’s are pretty cool.”  Again, Romee searches intently for the red monkey’s.  She looks up at Caden and points to the yellow monkey (in the picture) and says, “You mean that one?”.  Caden confirms that is the monkey he is talking about.  Romee looks at him and says, “Caden, that monkey is not red, it is yellow.” We all over hear the conversation and burst into laughter.  Caden looks at us like we are all crazy and says, “Quit messing with me guys, that monkey is red!”  That causes us to all laugh even harder.  Poor kid, he was SURE that monkey was red.  I don’t know if he still believes us.  We started wondering what his color-blind eyes saw all day.        

We are almost certain this sloth hasn’t moved for at least 10 years.  I think that for the first 5 years we visited this zoo it was laying in this same spot of the tree and is still there! 

The baby giraffe and the baby lion cubs were highlights of the trip.

We had such a fun day and it was refreshing to know that there are some things that kids never outgrow.  I think Cade had just as much fun as Amirah.  We can’t wait to go back this summer.