Family Friday at the Zoo

Fridays are definitely my favorite day of the week.  Fridays are Troy's day off and around here we call them "Family Fridays."  A whole day of togetherness to do whatever we want.  Well, on Monday of this past week I saw that the weather was supposed to be really nice and that on Friday it was going to be a beautiful and sunny 82 degrees.  I immediately sent Troy a text and told him that we should go to the zoo for Family Friday.  He was in....we love the zoo.  I am still like a kid when I am there....I love seeing everything and squeal at each new animal, like I really can't believe we get to see giraffes, monkeys and penguins in the middle of Indiana.

As soon as Ashlyn's therapy session was finished on early Friday morning, we were off for the short trip down to Indy.  A special part of this particular trip for the girls was that they were both rolling in new seats...Ashlyn graduated to Kyla's big girl seat and Kyla got a brand new really big girl seat.  Here they are in their new rides:

Ash in her new seat....she likes it!

Kyla in her seat....she is really proud of it.

We got to the zoo and couldn't believe what a perfect day it was....low 80's with no humidity at the end of August....yahoo!  We got busy right away seeing everything.

Kyla checking out a polar bear

Getting a lift from Daddy to see the giraffes

All of the animals seemed to be out while we were there and we got to see lots of them up close.  Kyla told me before we left that she was most excited to see the giraffes.

We saw some giraffes....

rhinos....

and my favorite....elephants.

Ashlyn's favorite part was the petting zoo area.  This is her world right now....we spend countless hours showing her pictures of farm animals, making the sound they make and showing her the sign for it.  We have all perfected our animal sounds around here.

Here is Ashlyn checking out the goats

She thought it was pretty fun

This was Kyla's thought on the petting zoo....it was loud.  It really was...the goats were very vocal!

We also went to look at the butterfly garden they have at the zoo.  Before we left our house, I told Kyla they have a whole house at the zoo where butterflies live and fly around everywhere.  This made her really excited and she decided she should probably wear her shirt that has butterflies on it for all of the butterflies to see.  I love it...fashion even plays a part at the zoo. :)

Here is Kyla checking out a butterfly....I wonder if they noticed her shirt?

We got an up close look when a butterfly landed on Daddy's finger

Ashlyn getting a really close look

As we were walking in the butterfly garden, a sweet woman who worked there asked if she could take a family picture for us.  Here we are:

I love it!  Try as we might...getting both kids to look is nearly impossible.  But, I do love that we will always have the memory of this picture and our time together.

Family Fridays....we love you!