Let's Go to the Zoo

Yeah for a warm sunny day so we could go visit the Niabi Zoo one more time before it closed for the season. 

This sweet little zoo has grown so much over the years since we started visiting it. This year we bought a year pass since the kids pass was the same amount as a day admission. With the train tickets and free passes for guests and using it to get in free or half off at reciprocal zoos this summer and a few visits here, these passes were so worth it.

Today the highlight was feeding the goats. Rebecca thought this was the BEST THING EVER! She had no fear of feeding them. One time she accidentally got all her fingers in a goats mouth and it bit down on them. She just looked at the goat with a "what were you thinking biting my fingers" look and went on with feeding them. We quickly ran out of food, so the kids started picking it up from under the feeding stations. They ended up picking up way more then we bought. We could have easily spent an hour feeding the goats!

We put some food on Rebecca's babies head and the goat ate it right off. Rebecca thought it was so funny and wanted more food on her babies head. This little baby got picked to come visit the zoo with us today. We can't go anywhere with a baby doll anymore.

The Hippo Statue. 

We always get a picture on this guy. Every time without fail. Simeon was at a Boy Scout camp out in Nauvoo, IL a few hours away from us, so that's why he's not in any pictures.

 The kids always look forward to taking a ride on the train, but sadly it wasn't working today because of construction, so we did the next best thing and took a ride on the Merry-Go-Round. Ammon rode the cheetah behind the gorilla Rebecca was riding, so he could chase her!

 

We also saw some animals doing some funny things today. 

This guy was sticking his head out looking for some treats.

 When we walked back past the giraffes later we saw this guy licking the pole. The kids thought it must have tasted good.

 When we went to see the Gibbons they were swinging all over the place. This darker one found a leaf out of the fence and reached out to get it. It took it on the ledge above us, then swung down with his feet right above the kids heads. He stayed there and stared at us for a few minutes.

When we got to the elephant enclosure we saw this guy reaching his trunk over the wall. It looked like he was trying to bite the wall. After a minute he came back over with a trunk full of dry pine needles from the tree right outside the enclosure.

There are alot of new projects under way here at Niabi Zoo, that will be more finished next spring when it warms up enough to go visit again. We love coming to visit this zoo. It's a pretty small one, and we can see everything in about an hour and a half, and we drive an hour each way, but it's so worth it. Today we forgot all about the reptile house, so we will for sure be going again this spring.