The Carstens: Visiting the Gassend Family: Day 2

Our second day visiting with the Gassend Family was an all-day adventure at the Oakland Zoo. Our morning started out pretty early for some (Miss Abby and Sophie) while the others kept on snoozing until a decent hour of the day arrived.

Abbe and Sophie playing well together in their 'zones'. The girls played so well together when they weren't playing together. :-) You can also see the toy that Abby fell in love with, which Sophie is currently playing with in the picture. You push balls down into the holes at the top and then they go through a series of Rube Goldberg like motions before popping out at the bottom.

The day for the zoo turned out to be perfect. It was slightly overcast with cooler temperatures. Since we'd come from 50* weather into 70+* weather the cooler turn was very welcome. It did lend itself to some interesting clothing choices as you can see Abby in a sundress with pants. :-) It's been years since I've been to a zoo and I still had just as much fun watching the animals in their various environments. I think my favorites for the day were the elephants and the monkeys. I did find out an interesting difference between the kids. Abby would run up to see an animal, check it out for a minute or two, then want to run off to see the next exciting thing (which could have been another animal, a leaf on the ground, a bench, etc) while Sophie would run up to see an animal and then hang out happily viewing said animal for ten minutes before wanting a different view. This made for some interesting kid wrangling. :-) I'd run up with Abby and then run her back to the group, then run to a different spot and then back to the group. I thought for sure that all this running would eventually wear her out to where she'd be more content staying with everyone but I think the running just gave her extra energy!

Sophie and Abby watching the tigers. It was definitely a "monkey see, monkey do" type of day with Abby and Sophie/Jonathan.

Abby did enjoy watching the giraffes for a period of time as once came pretty close to us to eat from a nearby tree. I could see that Abby was intrigued by the giraffe's long tongue and the fact that he was eating leaves (which Abby has previously discovered don't taste very good).

The Mamas and their kiddos.

The two girls being ever so sweet. I thought their matching pig tails were a hit!

Blaise and Nate don't seem too impressed with the elephants.

But Jonathan is enjoying them.

What a ham! I thought this picture of him was too good to pass up.

As we were making our way towards the entrance to grab a bite to eat (my goodness I forgot how expensive 'park' food could be) we took a side trail down to see the meerkats. In their viewing area there was a little tunnel that was perfect kid height. Jonathan went right in to explore and Abby soon followed. There was another kid in the tunnel with his Dad patiently waiting outside for just the right moment to nap his son. The kid had discovered that Dad was too big to fit into the tunnel to pull the kid out, and the kid wasn't ready to leave yet. It was an amusing few minutes as the kid would come to the front of the tunnel, but just out of reach, then run back to the glass. Eventually Dad won out but it was touch and go there for a while.

Jonathan having fun running back and forth into and out of the tunnel.

Abby was cute as she navigated the tunnel. She started out walking in while standing straight up but once she saw Jonathan having to bend over to walk without hitting his head she started to hunch down herself. By the time she was at the entrance she was scooting on her bottom.

I was very impressed with the kiddos and their behavior at lunch. We'd taken a long time to get to the food court and it was well past everyone's lunch time, but the kids patiently waited without a fuss for us to order and then pick up the food. They also sat calmly in their chairs or played nicely at the foot of the table. They all three earned gold stars for their attitude! After lunch was finished Abby joined up with some neighboring table girls as they ran around the eating area (there were only four tables eating so this wasn't a big disturbance) playing tag. Then it was off to view a little more of the park before naptime called us home.

Jonathan thought of this very creative way to have his Dad push all the kids in the two strollers.

Jonathan held on to Abby's stroller very nicely while Blaise duck walked around it.

As you can see Abby was very content to travel this way for a good while.

After lunch we visited the monkey enclosure. Abby was mesmerized! I think she recognized that we have similar traits to the chimpanzees but was also amazed at our differences. She kept looking at the monkey as it was pulling grass to feed itself and then back at me like she remembered me pulling weeds. This was honestly her longest stop for animal viewing the entire time we were at the park.

Miss Sophie was the first to let us know that naptime was approaching. And now that I see this picture I'm amazed that Valerie was able to carry her for so long with the bottom of the Ergo not being attached to her correctly. Sorry Valerie! Next time I'll make sure to notice if it's on right or not, it's a much easier carrier when Sophie is sitting in it properly, I promise!!!

At this point I'd given up on trying to keep Abby with the rest of the group. Everyone was still hanging out with the monkeys or in the big grassy field next to them while Abby had run down the path to the children's part of the zoo. There she got to see a turtle and play on, and with, some sculptures.

She loved the eyes on the frog as she kept point to them and then back to her own eyes over and over.

I was amazed at how big these turtles were.This picture doesn't do them justice.

Crawling through the turtle shell. And oh my baby is so tired! Just look at those bags under her eyes.

Isn't it just like a kid to find entertainment in something not designed to be entertaining. She had such fun pushing the sides further and further apart as she would crawl through the opening.

The last zoo stop was letting the kids play with the sculptures at the beginning of the entrance to the children's part of the zoo. The white rocks are actually supposed to represent snake eggs. The curved, brown, and long rock that Abby is sitting on is a part of the 'snake' statue. In the back right corner you can just barely see another hump of the snake and then the two green sticks are representing grass. Kind of hokey but the kids had fun climbing on everything.

All in all the day was a huge success! All the kids behaved extremely well for being as hungry and as tired as we let them get. (Abby who normally goes down for a nap between 12 and 1pm didn't get to fall asleep in the car until almost 3pm.) We saw animals we'd never seen before, and probably won't for a long time as we are a minimum of 3.5 hours away from the nearest zoo. And the kids played great together! The rest of the day was spent napping, eating dinner at a yummy Pakistani restaurant, and then putting the kids to bed so we adults could enjoy some adult-only time. We even had some amusement when Sophie woke up a little bit after being put down, got a Mom and Dad hug, and then promptly fell back asleep face down on the floor. :-) Our zoo trip wore her out!