A Day at the Cincinnati Zoo

I woke up this morning and it was a gorgeous day -- a record-breaking low of 47 degrees last night (I love it), and today the high was forecast at 81, which meant it would be in the high 60's to mid-70's for the morning at least. Brayden arrived around 7am today, and I announced that he and I were headed to the Cincinnati Zoo. He was SO excited! We arrived around 10am, stayed for about 2 1/2 hours and saw about one-third of the zoo. Brayden walked the entire time, and there's no hurrying a 2 yr old! I have taken him to the Zoo before, but this time he "got it"...he was fascinated with the animals, roared at the lions, wished he could swim with the rhinocerous (rye-son-si-sus), and wanted to play with the "big kitty" (white tiger). But above all else, he absolutely loved the train ride. First, he just couldn't believe that WE were actually going to get ON the train! He was so funny about it. While we were standing in line, he must have asked me 20 times "On train, Umma?". And once we got on, he was so seriously enthralled with the whole thing. I swear, he was almost shaking with excitement. I guess being a Thomas the Train fan helped. He was also excited about telling Kelly (his other babysitter) about his train ride. Whenever we finish any "adventure", I always like to talk with Brayden about what we did and what we saw... Kind of refresh his memory about it all. I asked him today what he liked best about the zoo, and he said "ice cream cone". LOL And I asked him what animal he liked best and he said, "Ummmmmmmmmmmm... rhinocerous sleeping in the water." Then I asked him if he'd like to come to the Zoo again, and he said "Yes!" and "Umpa go to the zoo!". I said, "You want Umpa to come to the Zoo with us next time?" and he said, "Yes! And Mama!" Looks like we need to have a nice family day at the Zoo soon! He stayed awake in the car all of 10 minutes once we left the zoo around 12:45. And if Mr. Energy looked like this

you can imagine how tired his grandmother is tonight!