A Day At The Tulsa Zoo

On the 4th of July we decided a trip to the zoo sounded like a nice change of scenery. It was a good reason to discover why the Tulsa Zoo was voted America's Favorite Zoo. Who doesn't like animal watching anyway? Although we have lived here for 3 1/2 years we have only been there twice and the second time was only for a few minutes (very long story). In the back of my mind I was wondering if Jared and Charlie are too old, maybe they will think this is really boring once we get there.

Charlie was excited since this was the perfect opportunity for a full day of heelying (the shoes with the wheels in the heel.) I'll be the first to admit that those shoes can be annoying, but I decided to be a trooper and let her wear them all day knowing it could be a day of falls, scrapes, bruises, being cut off while walking repeatedly, her ahead of us, her behind us, pull me dad, wait - did I mention I was being a trooper:) Really it came down to the fact that their a special new toy that she had saved all her money to get and Grandma Gail even pitched in some! I knew she would be content and there would be less chance of her getting bored so I thought it would work out great for the whole family... until we made it through the first gate after paying to get in and the guard promptly told us "no heelys." Bummer for Charlie! But I had some flip flops in the back pack and she had a great attitude about it so it all worked out! WHEW!

Right inside the gate is the monkey house and we were surprised to see some little baby monkeys. They were so cute. I was thinking about all the shows you see where people keep them as pets. Cute idea, although when I saw the adult monkey that changed my mind fast!

Lots of the animals were missing, no Polar Bear, no Tiger, no Jaguar, no Kangaroo Rat, no sloth, Scott mentioned that this was probably why it's $2 off admissions in July! Funny thought! We were happy to be there and it was a nice change of pace. We took our time and strolled around enjoying the beautiful weather. Then we were just in time for the Meerkat feeding and that was really neat. They zookeepers gave them 35mm film containers that had small holes to get food out of. They had to shake or roll it and the food pellets would drop out. Those little guys are fun to watch, I can understand how there could be a whole show on Animal Planet devoted solely to them. The kids asked us if you can have them as pets and my mind wondered back to the monkeys... probably not a good idea:)

All in all it was a great day. Different from a few years back when they had the excitement of younger kids, I caught myself feeling sad for just a moment or two thinking about when they were younger with all the excitement and questions. I was trying to remember if I truly appreciated that time spent with them? Then I decided to just let it go and appreciate the moment we were in and how much older they seemed from the last time. Not as many question es nor excitement but still a great time just the same. So we rode the train back to the front and decided to leave and go buy some fireworks after all it is the 4th of July and you can let off fireworks in Oklahoma! Now I see excitement in their eyes! Here come the questions - can we light some, can we get the big ones, how many are we gonna get? Whoa! Well, we got their attention and went and got some fireworks, but that's another story...