To the Zoo and Beyond!

Last Friday, we took a family trip to the zoo in Madison. The Custom Shoppe where Rob works has been shutting down on Fridays this month to recoop some losses (no worries on Rob's job--he was ranked second in the factory during evaluations--so proud of my man!) so Rob has had several three-day weekends. We all needed to get away, so we decided on the zoo. I don't think you can ever really outgrow going to the zoo, so we were all looking forward to it.

Now, let's stop and think about the Litwiller family for a moment, shall we? There are five of us. Two are in diapers, one drinks formula, one is transitioning out of strollers, and one is still fine-tuning staying with Mommy and Daddy. As you can well-imagine, we had our work cut out for us. Back to the story.

We arrived early only to find that the main parking lot was already full. Not too surprising, as it is a free zoo with free parking. We did manage to park close enough and then started unloading the passengers. Rob and I had a brief discussion on whether or not to let Ben walk. We opted for walking. We really should have known better, being former professional educators. Every teacher knows to start off strict and loosen up, not the other way around. We should have confined him first and let him run later, but it was too late...he was loose. He did stay with us pretty well up until later in the zoo....but I'll get back to that.

We wanted to get a picture of the kids in front of the zoo sign, but we got caught in a daycare herd, so we decided to try the pic on the way out instead. Our first stop was the lions, everyone's favorite. Last year, the male was roaring up a storm. This year, he was fast asleep. The boys roared for him (he did not even stir.) Then we decided to see the penguins, one of Ben's favorites. That's where the trouble started. Ben got to run in public! They watched the penguins for about five seconds and then wanted to take off. This started a trend of catching up with the boys, standing for a minute (maybe?) and then they were off to the next animal. Had we been at Brookfield, this might not have been a problem. But at a zoo as tiny as the Henry Villa, they would be done in half an hour at that rate! We finally "convinced" Ben to walk next to us while we made our way to the goats. (That was after he ran behind an employees-only gate.)

Feeding the goats was quite the fun event. Matthew laughed hysterically when the goats took the food from him, but Ben was rather scared and dropped his food right away. Rob showed him how to feed them and they had fun after that. I don't think I'll ever forget Ben's face when the goats were eating. Priceless!

We ran over to the children's area to play on the new playground and ride the carousel. The boys ran around while I fed Anna (who was far more interested in the carousel than her bottle!) The boys and I took a ride on it after Anna finished eating and they had a blast. Then it was off to more exhibits. We did put Ben in the stroller for the remainder of the trip and HE WAS NOT HAPPY!! Rob took his usual 100 or so pictures of bears in various poses (I might be exaggerating....maybe...) We decided we'd all had enough and headed off to lunch. We still had some gift certificates to the Cracker Barrel, so we treated the family. That was kind of crazy, but we were in a corner away from everyone, so that made it more tolerable...for the other patrons...

Sunday night, Matthew and I went to the library's pool party for those that finished the reading program. The rest of the fam went to an afterglow for our Sunday school class. Matthew had a great time. He was a little timid at first, but after he found some friends from church, he was good to go. He even said to me, "I'm okay now, Mommy. You can go back and sit on the bench." We found out there that we were one of the winners from the family program and we get a free pizza and a gift certificate to Mullen's, the local ice cream place. Matthew won a prize for his drawing as well, which was of Michael and Jane from Mary Poppins.

Rob and I are looking forward to Friday, we we go away overnight for our anniversary. Rob's parents are coming to watch the kids as we go to beautiful, exotic Johnson Creek (8 miles from here.) Can't wait!