Christmas in November (The Tulsa Zoo)

We decided that this year for Christmas we wanted to get Brenden something that wouldn't be thrown aside when he was tired of it or stuffed into the garage when he was too big for it. Tim came up with the great idea of getting a year long pass to the zoo! We took Brenden to the Denver Zoo when he was about 6 months old and he seemed to enjoy it (as much as a 6 month old can), plus the Tulsa Zoo is only a little more than 6 miles away so it's very convenient. We didn't want to wait until December to buy it because we wanted to be able to use it a little this year before it got too cold.

Since Sunday was looking like a great day to be outside, we made Sunday our Family Trip to the zoo day. Brenden immediately became distracted by the buttons on the Coke machine and all the other little kids that were running around. I thought we would never get him to look at any of the animals. After a little persuading, and strapping him into the stroller, he decided looking at the exhibits was OK, too. We watched a couple of baby chimps playing and then running towards an older chimp. It was adorable to see the babies so excited! They jumped right onto the older one, who I would guess was their momma. (Reminded me of Brenden when Tim gets home.) Our next stop was the desert, which included snakes, lizards, and other creepy crawlies. Brenden found another little boy to follow named Dalton and they had a great time chasing a lizard back and forth in the display.

Dalton and Brenden...and the lizard of course.

Our next stop was outside to look at a couple of huge turkeys. We must have been the loudest group at the zoo, with everyone making turkey noises to get their attention. Past the turkeys we found some local animals, including raccoons and owls. By this time Brenden was more interested in Grandpa Warehime's cane and really didn't look at any of them. He temporarily forgot the cane every time we walked past another toddler, especially little girls. The boy is going to be trouble! The next building was a tropical exhibit, and my goodness was it humid! You would think living in Oklahoma would prepare you for all degrees of humidity, but it was actually hard to breathe. It was one of the more interesting stops since we found a little monkey that was extremely interested in another visitor's Cheerios. Brenden and Tim got to stand next to it and Brenden tried to pet it. Oops! I'm just glad that when we passed the dart frogs a few minutes later, which are pretty darn poisonous, he was preoccupied. They actually had a zoo keeper stationed near the frogs because many of them have gone missing. They hop around in the bottom of an open exhibit so I'm not surprised. You would think a piece of Plexiglas or some netting would solve their problem, but I guess a random dude with a ponytail watching everyone works, too. Anyway....

Hi there monkey!

The next few stops included a lion, a couple of penguins who weren't too keen on swimming, and some humongous turtles. By this time Brenden was getting pretty tired so it was more interesting for us than it was for him. He still allowed us to take a few pictures and really didn't fuss while we laughed at the toys in the gift shop. Just to prove how tired he really was, he fell asleep in the car about 2 minutes after we put him in the carseat....WITHOUT his pacifier. This may not sound like a big deal for other kids, but if you know our child then you know about his attachment to his pacifier when he's tired. I took this as a sign that he enjoyed his early Christmas present, and I'm excited to take him back again and to find out with animal is really his favorite. Although, I have a feeling that they will have some tough competition if there are any little girls around. :)

So tired!

I took a ton of pictures, which you can see here if you'd like. Enjoy and Merry Early Christmas!