Como Zoo

I'm sorry I've been so delinquent with my posts! I've been having such a hard time recovering from our vacation - i just can't seem to get enough sleep! We get to bed late, or i'm up all night. Not to mention the fact that horribly painful leg cramps have set in, and makes sleeping at ALL difficult. But, i'm officially 3/4 of the way through the pregnancy! Only ten weeks left! It seems like such a long time, but at the same time it seems awfully soon! 

Anyway, i'm trying to catch up with our vacation posts, since i know you all want to see more sunny photos of my beautiful children having the time of their lives! *wink*

So, our first big outing in Minnesota was to the Como Zoo. I'd never been there before, but it sounded like a lot of fun! It is a smaller zoo, though they have LOTS of cool animals (i'll spare you the animal photos, though - too many)! AND they have a little amusement park IN the zoo, which was a lot of fun too. It was hot, and we were all exhausted by the end, but it was a blast anyway. It felt so weird doing a zoo and an amusement park in the same outing - it felt like two seperate days! Anyway, on to the photos!!!

This was the butterfly house! I thought it was a really neat tent, and then i got further away and realized, it's a CATERPILLAR!! Nobody seemed to be as amused as i was, though. I'm simple like that, i suppose. hahaha!

The first animal of the day was in the visitors center - a big skink! They also had a turtle and a snake. Elijah liked them. 

Elijah pretending to be a flamingo.

I kept trying to get a butterfly to land on me in the butterfly house. One landed on Josh, and he wasn't impressed. What a waste! 

It rained while we were having lunch - thankfully my family had the foresight to sit under the tent, and we didn't get too wet. It slowed us down a bit, but Elijah enjoyed playing in the puddles.

I got Dippin' Dots - SO UNBELIEVABLY EXPENSIVE, but always necessary when we visit Minnesota; a novelty we can't get in Canada - and oh, SO GOOD!!

(I had to throw in a picture of the tiger - my favorite!)

After we saw all the animals, we went over to "Como Town" to ride some rides. 

Elijah and his cousin Paige got to drive some mini Go-Carts, which was fun for them! Elijah loved learning how to drive all by himself! He kept going around in circles, but he loved it anyway. And afterwards, he got a Driver's licence!

Riley's favorites were the Horse Carriages and the Race Cars. He went on them four times each! At one point, Riley dragged me over to the Race Cars saying, "Lightning McQueen!! Lightning McQueen!!". He instantly climbed into a yellow car, and after I buckled him in and walked back outside the fence, he started fussing and trying to get out! I called to him to sit down, but he kept fussing over something. The ride operator, who was checking their seatbelts, bent down to talk to him, and found the problem. He wanted the RED one (like McQueen, i suppose)! But she was very nice, and helped him out of the yellow car and into the red one.

There were some rides i was worried about Riley going on - he being two years old, and BARELY 36 inches, which was the bare minimum for most of the rides. The swings and the Frog Hopper were two of the ones i was concerned about - but there was no need; he LOVED them!! In fact, I've never seen Riley laugh so hard as he did on the Frog Hopper!

Como Town also had a VERY cool splash park that the boys cooled down in at the end of the day. There was a treehouse with climbing ropes and slides and things in the same area as the splash park, but the kids weren't interested. 

 

Their favorite part of the Splash Park was sitting on the jets. Riley figured out how to sit on the jet so the water sprayed out between his legs. Then he lean back a little and get a face full of water! And of course, Elijah had to do it too...