Gauger Family Fun Day

We celebrated our family day of fun at the Dallas Zoo! It was the most perfect weather day for the whole week! We took advantage of the day and got up early and took off. We got to the zoo speedy quick with hardly any Monday morning traffic.

This is how she rode, wagon style with all our crap piled up in the 2nd seat!

 She was SO excited. We told her a week ago that we were going and she literally asked every day when it was time to go! She had just had a zoo unit at school so it was good timing.  Our first stop was Africa. We hadn't been since the zoo opened up the new Africa exhibit.

 It was the coolest thing I have ever seen (zoo style!) It literally felt like we were in Africa. It was just beautiful and quiet with elephants, zebras, and giraffes roaming around. We went to the giraffe's first.

Literally the neatest thing, you can feed the giraffes. After you pay $5 of coarse for the lettuce. I was in awe with them. We were up high at a feeding station and they were about eye level with us. Unbelievable.

 I think I took over 50 pictures of them. I couldnt' help myself. Just so neat! Gracie tried to feed them then chickened out and these giraffes were very sweet but HUNGRY and LOVE lettuce. She kept pulling back and they reached in farther. Literally could have licked her hand. They were trying to snatch it. I took a few videos I'll upload later. Kelly and I both took turns feeding them and it was so fun.

Aren't they so cute? They really didn't like to be pet, they just wanted food! 

                     This is the feeding station where we were earlier to actually get to feed them. 

              Next we saw the cheetah. She did something really funny right as we were walking up. She saw something (we think a lady's hat ) that caught her eye and took off and was in charge position. It was pretty cool to watch!  Such a pretty animal too. 

 

Next we saw the lions. We were able to go inside a little restaurant to see them closer but this is all they were doing! Sun bathing! This was the first sunny day in a long time I guess so they were soaking it all in!! 

The elephants were really fun to watch too. They were just grazing and wondering around.

Loved the tortoise too. 

The mommy chimp was very busy with her new baby. It was so cute and just born a little bit ago. She was too busy to even hardly turn around to face us! 

Around this time we were tired so we stopped for a picnic lunch in the children's zoo area. We brought lunch so it was a great idea by me, Ha! 

 In the children's area is where they have a little splash/water pad type thing. Gracie was in heaven b/c I told her she could splash around. That's ALL she wanted to do! After lunch we let her splash then we went on to see more animals.

A brand new koala exhibit just opened up. You had to wait in line and when we finally got up this is what we saw. 

 Turns out, koalas are only awake for 20-30 minutes a day, total. Lovely.  The kangaroos were next door and neat to watch.

 Last we went to the reptile exhibit. This was one bad dude! Wouldn't want to mess with him.

 And finally after much begging and pleading (from her) we let her go back and splash some more. She was super excited and wanted her swim suit. I had remembered last time we were there so many kids in swimsuits (even though the water was FREEZING!) so I planned ahead and packed hers. She was in heaven.

 Finally she was ready to go so I got her out and dressed her back up. We told her should could pick out one prize from our zoo day and she chose a tiger in a cute little purse. It was a great family fun day that we all enjoyed. We were out of there by 1:30, home by 2 and took naps!