ABQ Zoo

The Albuquerque Zoo really is one of the best zoos that I have been to. They have so many different animals and great habitats for observing them. We spent a great day there with Natalie, Kaylee and Lincoln. Nana and Vatti even got a zoo pass for this year, so the kids were also able to go to the Aquarium the next day for free, but I don't have any pictures of it since Caleb and I used that time to hang out together without the kids. I few highlights of our fun zoo trip.
The New Mexico Lobo that greeted us at the gate. Gavin did hit his head on it after a few minutes of climbing, nothing like starting your zoo day with a few tears.

Our Happy Family of Zoo goers. This was taken right before Henry threw a fit about putting on sunscreen and kicked my toe-nail to pieces, there were no tears from me, but plenty of blood. Gotta love our little highlights of injury and tantrums.

The train ride at the zoo is decent if you aren't too worried about seeing many animals, which the kids weren't. They just enjoyed riding and hearing the conductor talk about what they would see when they walked through the exhibits.

Natalie and Lincoln waiting for the train riders.

Wyatt loved watching the seals eating their breakfast...

... He loved it so much that he had Dad feed him his fish crackers the same way.

The peacocks were walking around like they owned the place. Judging from Alaina's fear at getting close to them, I think they did.

A little spot for camouflage for Gavin and Kaylee.

How many grandkids does it take to equal a crocodile.

This habitat had monkeys and birds living right along with large fish tanks. It was pretty cool. Gavin still had his eyes on the anaconda in the tank next to them.

Miss Kaylee loves a good photo op, she let me know were all the best places to take pictures were.
The little vipers giving their best viper hiss.

We did have one incident with the new playground at the zoo. We arrived at it after seeing a lot of animals and the kids were super excited to play, there were already a lot of kids running everywhere on the structure. After about 4 minutes of them plays a zoo security guard showed up and yelled to all of the parents that the playground was closed and we had to get our kids off. Apparently there were some strangely placed signs under the huge playground indicating it was closed. We had only seen one and thought it was just referring to a small area in one corner. Needless to say this caused some devastation among our kids who thought we were just being mean parents. Gavin was in tears and couldn't believe that such a thing could happen on the day of our visit to the zoo. We had to explain several times exactly what had happened and that all of the kids had to leave and that no, we would not be able to come back to it on another day. By the time we went to dinner that night, Gavin was still telling the most dramatic version of the story to Duane, though luckily just as an injustice of life and not a teary or traumatic situation.