RICHMOND ZOO

We went to the zoo!

The build up and hype for this zoo trip was tremendous. Ken and I talked about it all the time in the days leading up to the event, and we had an easy and willing audience because Sloane loves animals. We're all benefiting from this love; turns out, it's a chance for us to appreciate them all over again.  In the week before, we watched planet earth episodes, talked about the upcoming outing at least a couple of times a day and even studied the zoo map to get ourselves acquainted with the animals we would get to see. 

Ken and I, we love getting excited for things together, and now that we can include Sloane in our adventures, it just compounds the joy and anticipation leading up to things (and us annoyingly asking her over and over again, "are you excited??" somehow doesn't get old, and she readily responds with a "yes!" each time). In that regard, we were all excited for the zoo, and we were not disappointed. 

I felt like a kid myself walking through the zoo; we were all, "Wow look at that!" "Come here, look there!" There is something about animals that are magical, especially ones that we don't usually get to see, and during this trip it was even more amazing because all of us saw them through Sloane's eyes. 

Sloane studying the zoo map.

We were able to get so close to the giraffes, it was amazing.

It was so darn special to have this experience with all these family members - my parents, Ken's mom and sister and Ken's cousin that we hadn't seen ken a while.

After the zoo, we came back to our house, sang Sloane a rousing rendition of happy birthday and opened presents together with the family. She seemed overwhelmed by all the attention but look at that face!

And look...the four of us!