We had such fun!

Something unusual happened last Friday. Bob and I both had the day off! On top of that, we were planning to have Alaina overnight that night. We decided that meant we needed to do something special, and decided on a trip to the zoo. The weather was perfect, sunny with a nice breeze. We picked Alaina up in the morning and headed for John Ball Zoo in Grand Rapids.

This is a statue of John Ball, which is at the entrance to the zoo.  You can see by the worn spots on it, that many kids have crawled on him, and sat on his lap for a photo.  I remember sitting on his knee when I was young!  However, Alaina didn't want any part of it; she prefers to sit with Grandpa.

The flamingos were near the entrance. along with a lot of other water birds.

We saw warthogs, bears, wallaby's and lions.

We had fun watching the penguins swim by.

 

 

Alaina and Grandpa walked behind the waterfall.

Alaina loved watching all the different types of monkeys.

 

There are camels you can take a ride on.  I tried to talk Alaina into riding with Grandpa, but she didn't like that plan.  Better to just stand back and look at them!

 

 

Being held by Grandpa is the best way to see the animals.

 

She was pretty sure this was our cat Oliver.  She knocked on the window to wake him up, but he kept sleeping.  She told Heather she saw Oliver at the zoo, but he wouldn't wake up.

This is Nessie.  She lives in the pond at the entrance to the zoo.  She was an entry in Artprize a few years ago, and it's nice that she stayed in the city.

When we got home, Alaina had to hunt for Oliver.  She found him sleeping, so she brought him a stuffed animal to sleep with.   :)

 

To end our day, we went to the local ice cream place and got our first ice cream of the season.  You can imagine what a mess Alaina was after this outing!

The next morning, she got up and said "Grandma, we go to the zoo today maybe?"   I'm afraid we have to wait a little to go back, but we sure had fun!