COLUMBIA, S.C.- PART 2

On Sunday, we went here....

...and we had a BLAST!  We were there for almost 5 hours and we ALL did great!

Our family pride!

They were really interested in seeing every animal!  Just an aside:  I remember when I was in high school, our parents took us to California.  While we were in San Diego, we went to the zoo there and I had an attitude the whole time!  I DID NOT have any interest in zoos and I let me parents know it by the pout on my face!

I am very happy to see that, so far, none of the kids have my old zoo-dislike!  I love them now, but not so much as a kid for some reason!

When I asked Lexi what her favorite animal was, she said the monkey!

The family looking at...

...a lion!

There was a chance to buy some nectar to feed the birds... but we didn't do that.  Another side story:  When I was on vacation with my friend, Dana, in high school, I got pooped on by a bird... on the boardwalk....  So all I thought about was getting pooped on while feeding them!  Dave wasn't a big fan of the idea either!  

So this is what we did...  We entered the bird area, I snapped this picture of a random man's hand feeding birds while his wife and son left quickly because the birds were all over her hair and hat, and quickly left!  The kids were all too happy to get out of there!

Mommy's favorite!

The zoo was getting ready for Boo at the Zoo while we were there.

Thinking of Neel and Suzi!  Not that they milk their cows but they do have cows!  The kids LOVED this!

Time to feed the goats!  Ben and Lexi were all about sticking their fingers through the fence to get the feed to the goat!  Maaike... not so much!

Time to clean hands, kiddos!

We splurged for the train ride for the kids and it was totally worth seeing the smiles on their faces!

Sweetie pie

My other favorites!

We got to see feeding time for the penguins!

Mommy: "Ben, where have you seen this kind of fish before?"
Ben: "Great Grandmom's!"

Maaike's favorite animal: giraffes!

Again, Lexi and Ben were all up in their faces trying to feed them!

Maaike needed a little prompting but soon she was doing in by herself!

Absolute joy!

Maaike even got so comfortable that she pet the giraffe!  She left even more infatuated with them!

We thought of you, Aunt Lainie!  Sorry the zebra is far away and it's not its prettiest side!  The zebra was much closer but when we got all the kids in the picture, it decided it was camera shy!

Time to leave... girls didn't want to go and were overtired so there were no more smiles left!

Bye-bye kiss!

Bye-bye hug!