Our Trip to the Oakland Zoo

This is the first weekend in a long time that we have spent actual "family time" together. We are usually going to parties or family events that have been pre-planned for us. This Saturday we had the option of going to the Delta with Brian's Dad or go to the Zoo like we planned because the Delta was something that was planned a few days before today. Brian was too tired to go to the Delta so we went to the Zoo. We had such a great time! I hope we can do more things as a family more often. We took Erika with us because my Dad had to coach Melinda's Little League game and Zenaida had to go to CPR class for her daycare licence. I am glad she went her and Alyssa are best friends even though they are Aunt and Niece with a 10 month age difference. Well the day started off with Erika calling me asking me when was I going to pick her up?? It was only 9:30 am and I was going to pick her up at 10 so I was surprised she called me. She told me later that she thought I went to the Zoo without her! Awww!! So I picked her up then I stopped at a garage sale down the street from her house because they had this little ride on horse that the lady sold me for 3 bucks!! I knew Gabby would die when she saw it. I also bought a brand new Dora rolling backpack for Gabbs, a princess cone hat for Alyssa and Beauty and the Beast VHS for Alyssa which we are watching now. All for 7 bucks! I need to go garage selling more often!
Anyway back to our Zoo trip. It was nap time for Gabby so she wasn't into the animals at all. The girls loved all of the animals but wanted to rush from place to place. They had their maps in their hands and we would just get to the giraffe exhibit then wanted to go to the elephant exhibit right away! So we had to slow them down. Their favorite was the elephants. We got to see them being fed and one elephant threw a stick at this guy who was sitting down on a bench!! It was crazy! They had the most personality in the zoo. The other favorite exhibit was the monkeys. There was one monkey who just sat in front of a mirror for a long time looking at himself! This other monkey showed off by climbing all over the trees and would look at all of us to make sure we were all still watching him. We took the kids to the children's part of the Zoo. They had a play area where Miss Gabby decided to start walking ALL OVER THE PLACE! This girl is officially a walker! I have lots of video!! We went to eat after the Children's Zoo and after we were finished Gabby decided that she was done and ready to walk back into the Zoo all by herself! I tried to hold her hand but she would not have any of it!
After eating we went to where the rides were and the girls went on a few rides. Alyssa was on a car ride with Erika and I waved to her and she totally ignored me!! Erika waved back at me. I told Brian, "Alyssa is ignoring me!!" So he tried to wave and she rolled her eyes!!! The next go round we both started waving and she yelled "MOM, DAD STOP WAVING!!!" Oh my goodness she used to LOVE to wave to us... but all of a sudden that is not cool anymore... *sniff, sniff* Brian took Gabby and the girls on the Merry Go Round and she started crying!! I know she was tired or else maybe she would have liked it. A few minutes later she knocked out... only to wake up to some screaming kid that woke her up ten minutes later!! All in all it was a fun day we spent 5 hours there and Gabby had a 10 minute nap with no real meltdowns... that is what I call a GREAT day! Here are some pictures from our day!! Next year we are going to the SF Zoo when Gabby is more into animals. The Oakland Zoo had slim pickings with it's animal exhibits.

Best Friends Forever:

Gabby crying on the Merry Go Round:

Alyssa and Erika with a Lion:
Alyssa and Erika with their bears from the gift shop. The bears were looking at the REAL bear.I thought that was cute so I took a pic:
Watching giraffes:

I love this picture.... Daddy and Gabby with sunglasses:

This is one of my favorites too... if you look closely behind the girls you can see an alligators body!!
Shhhh... we are in the QUIET ZONE!
Too small for the ride...

*** I am having issues with trying to load video on Blogger. So if one day Blogger would like to cooperate and let me download video I will post the video of Gabby walking at the Zoo.