Camels, Peacocks, PEOPLE, and more

Friday was such a beautiful 70 degree day that we decided to go to the zoo. So did everyone else in St. Louis. The place was PACKED. It took us nearly 45 minutes to find a parking spot.

Before we could drive to the zoo, we had to load up the truck. The Broadbent-Mobile seats 8, and we had 8 people plus two strollers to cram in there. I spent half an hour puzzling, lifting, heave-hoing, and wriggling the strollers into the vehicle. I had to remove the wheels frome our stroller so it would fit in the trunk. Next came the children, which took nearly as long. We didn’t pull out of the driveway till 11am.

Waffles!

Sticks!

Strollers!

We call Rose our little Rose Bud too.

We really couldn’t have pulled this off without Dani. She was such a fun, patient aunt to have at the zoo.

I know most people don’t go to the zoo to see camels, but LOOK at this guy. Isn’t he sick?

Ugh, covered in spit, matted hair, and standing over his own excrement. What got me was how he stood there proudly like he was saying, “Admire me.” He literally did not move an inch the whole time we watched him.

And then we saw a peacock with his lady. It was sweet! I brought my binoculars and I think I could spend all day watching animals through them.

After 3 hours, everyone started getting tired so we doubled up to power walk out of there.

Jay and Rose get so goofy when they’re tired. They were squealing and giggling away a little too loudly.

In spite of the tired state of our children, we HAD to stop at Ted Drew’s while we were in St. Louis. Ignoring the motherly conscience that told us ice cream at 4:30pm was a bad idea, we got some cool creamy frozen custard scandalously close to dinnertime.

Em held Steve’s cone so he could take this picture for us. Not bad for a 5 year old. Oh, that caramel-doused sweet cold custard. My mouth is watering as I type.

A free zoo and 60 cent ice cream cones? Pure extravagance.