Amnal Walk Like Dis

When I was a teenager, my parents, my friend Laura and I took a trip to Chicago to visit family and do a bit of sight seeing.  One of the things that we did while we were there was visit the Brookfield Zoo.  Now Laura and I were in that giddy teenage girl mode when pretty much everything is hilarious.  As we were walking around the zoo, we found ourselves behind this adorable little girl that was impersonating one of the animals as she walked down the road and saying "Amnal Walk Like Dis..." over and over again.  Being the goofy teens that we were, we picked up on the quote and the walk immediately and it quickly became a favorite for us.  Now, around 20 years later as I took my own children to the Brookfield Zoo for a fun family day, I couldn't help but think "Amnal Walk Like Dis..." and picture my own little guys impersonating the animals. 

We went to the zoo on the last Saturday of the month...four days before Asher's 3rd birthday (4 days before we would have to pay a fee to take Asher there).  Since we had been too busy to do any family fun days during Mother's Day, Father's Day or Eric's birthday, I wanted to make sure we did so before Asher's birthday.  Originally, I was thinking we would go up to a Lego event in Milwaukee, because they were forecasting rain.  When the day arrived though it was beautiful and we knew we needed to do something that was outside, so off to the zoo we went.

We knew it would take us a little over an hour to get there, so we timed our trip around late morning in hopes that the boys would take their naps early and sleep on the way down there.  For once, our planning paid off and both boys slept almost the entire way!  We arrived at the zoo at around 1pm (& oddly ran into a friend from Kenosha while we were parking), got our tickets and then headed inside. After checking out a few of the animals, we enjoyed our picnic lunch and then continued to make our way around the park...

Asher asleep in the car with his glasses on...upside down.

Asher & Eric checking out the Meerkats

Looking at all the big cats...who were all sleeping.

Checking out the Sea Lions

The Sea Lions and Seals had underwater viewing areas.  This was a favorite for the day.  Both boys loved watching them swim around, and Avery was very excited and squealing the entire time! 

Video: Avery & The Sea Lions

The monkeys and apes were another favorite, especially the baby gorilla.  She was climbing all over the place and totally adorable!!

Hard to see, but the baby is sitting under the tree...

& now climbing up the rope...

& now sitting with Mom.  Just outside of the picture was "dad", and he looked MEAN!  He kept glaring all of the humans down and it was a total Planet of the Apes moment.  I was pretty sure that if there was any way for one of us (humans) to get any closer, "dad" would end them.

Asher & Eric

Avery & I

In the zoo, there were a couple of metal animal sculptures that sprayed water.  If you asked Asher which animal was his favorite, he would say either the Elephant or the Giraffe that sprayed water!

Like Father, Like Son.

The Rhino...can you find it?

Avery, Asher & I looking at the Kangaroos.

Our little joey.

The giraffes...I think this was Asher's favorite REAL animal too.

Video: Roar!

At Asher's birthday party the weekend before we went to the zoo, he got a Velociraptor head/hand puppet as a gift.  I realized that he has been watching a few too many [strategically chosen] scenes from Jurassic park when first, he was afraid to go into the first animal building we visited because it was dimly lit and he was afraid the dinosaurs would get him and second, he would put his puppet (which he insisted on bringing) on his hand and then roar at the animals with it to try and scare them! ...I'd like to blame Eric for this, but it probably doesn't help that when he asked me before we left home if Emma was going to come with, I told him no because the animals would eat her!  (bad mommy?)

After the spraying metal elephant sculpture, we found a giraffe that also sprayed water.  Since we were all a bit hot and sticky, Eric decided to take Avery in to it, thinking he would like it...

...it is hard to see Avery's face in this picture, but if you can you will notice that he obviously did NOT like it.  He immediately started to scream and cry and everyone around gave a collective "Awww!"  :(

Finally before we left we headed back to the big cats to see if they were awake.  They were still being quite lazy, but we were at least able to see them.

When our tour of the zoo had concluded and we were all exhausted we decided to head back home.  Since it was about dinner time though and OTB happened to be on the way home, we just HAD to make one more stop to enjoy some tasty Mexican!  It was a great end to a great family day!