Warming Up!

In the last week the weather here in Ohio has totally turned around! We went from freezing rain to super sunny days and highs of 75 degrees. It is GREAT to finally be free to go out without 20 layers of clothes on. Since the weather report said that it was going to be super nice on Monday I decided that perhaps a trip to the zoo would be an excellent idea. I was scheduled to work on Monday but since I don't go in until 4:30 in the afternoon a quick trip was going to be no sweat (or so I thought). Braeden got up at about 8:30 and by 10:00 we were out the door and on our way to pick up Travis. We ended up not getting to the zoo until noon-ish because we had to get gas, cash and such.



While I was busy purchasing season passes Braeden and Travis strolled around the entrance to the zoo where they saw a giant peacock. Braeden loved it!!! When I finished with the passes we started our journey through the zoo. We stopped for a minute to check out the bears and let Braeden give them a quick wave, then hurried off to see the lions. The white lions were probably Travis's favorite animal of the day. One lioness seemed to be very interested in Travis. I say this because she was staring him down and would move towards him. It was super freaky! Right after the lions we went to check out the manatees which were pretty sweet. Braeden would stand right at the glass and when the manatee would swim past he would take off running. It was really funny to watch him do it over and over again. Up to this point Braeden was really good. That wouldn't last very long.



Braeden has become very independent lately and will not let you carry him ANYWHERE! He will tell you a couple of times that he wants to walk. If you do not listen then he begins to head-butt you to let you know he was serious when he said "WALK". He does listen and walk beside you for the most part, but let something catch his eye and he is off. Another issue we were having was that when we wanted to stop and look at animals he wanted to keep walking. Travis said that we could have just gone to the park and Braeden would not have known the difference (it also would have cost much less). Braeden did seem to enjoy a lot of the animals but he wanted to move on quickly. By the time we got around to the elephants which I thought he would LOVE he seemed to be too tired to really care. After the elephants we went to check out the lone giraffe (which Braeden thought was cool) and penguins then it was back to Dayton so that I could rush into work.



The sun was out in full force which caused Travis and I to look like ghosts in this picture. Our whiteness is almost blinding.



Needless to say I was exhausted from all the running around and I didn't get my daily nap. Braeden was also wiped out after the long day at the zoo and was asleep before we got back on I-75. After all is said and done I would do it all over again but next time I think we will be going down on a day when I don't have to work that afternoon.