Dinosaurs at the zoo!

First, one note: tomorrow is Maisie's last day of Kindergarten. OMG! So if you see me, I might be a big weepy about it. Be nice to me... and tell her congratulations!

Last Saturday, the girls and I headed down to the Minnesota Zoo. There are two new exhibits there for the summer! One has African animals, and the other has dinosaurs. Yes, dinosaurs at the Zoo! Just animatronic... this isn't a Jurassic Park situation.

If you haven't ever been to the Minnesota Zoo, let me take a second to explain its layout. There's one main building that has customer service/ticketing, a cafeteria, and the gift shop, and several indoor exhibits: Discovery Bay, the Tropics Trail, the penguins, and the Minnesota Trail are all in the same building. Then outside, there's a main plaza with a fountain/splash pad and a lot of trails with outdoor exhibits. Russia's Grizzly Coast, the Northern Trail, and the Family Farm are all outside. Dinosaurs and the African animals exhibits are outside, along the Northern Trail.

We had sunscreen, sunhats, and were ready to walk the trails to get to Africa and to see dinosaurs. Sadly, there were other plans for us! When we got to the zoo, we were told that a bison had escaped its enclosure, so nobody could go outside until it was recaptured. WHAT!

So, instead we spent the morning doing activities to help Maisie earn her Girl Scouts Minnesota Zoo badge. Ella was not exactly pleased about this arrangement.

But, what can you do.

Eventually we did all Maisie's activities (How many species of frogs are in Minnesota? What are three bird on the tropics trail? Draw your favorite fish on the coral reef. Draw a food chain of animals you see on the Minnesota trail.) and got the all-clear to head outside. FINALLY! We were off to see the dinosaurs!!

This is a dimetrodon. I don't know why, but I think its fossil looks much scarier than the robot version. Maybe because you can see the teeth so much more clearly? Or maybe it's the freaky spines... hard to say.

Either way, I'm glad we don't have to worry about running across one of these in the wild.

By the time we got through dinosaurs and the African exhibit (not as great as advertised - one giraffe and a bunch of ostriches was really all we saw), the girls were hot and tired. Fortunately, we went through the central plaza with its splash pad/fountain on the way back. They were ready to cool off and weren't going to be stopped by not having brought swimsuits!

A quick pose on the wolf statutes on the way out...

 capped off a great day at the Minnesota Zoo!

Easter at the Zoo!

Ah, springtime. Sun and green grass and trees budding and flowers growing. Isn't it great?

Well, yeah, unless it's Minnesota... in which case it's some snow melting, but a high temperature of 34 degrees. Brr!

On Easter, we met some friends at the Minnesota Zoo. We'd all planned to go out to their family farm exhibit to check out the zoo babies, but brrr!

We did make it as far outside as the grizzly bears with our friends. We got to see one of the zookeepers adding fish to their pond. He said the bears would probably wake up and eat the fish, but they were more interested in snoozing than snacking.

Around lunchtime/naptime our friends headed home, so we bundled up and set off to check out the farm babies at the family farm. It was a chilly walk, but once we got there, it was super fun. We walked through the different barns and saw piglets, ducklings, lambs, and chicken eggs hatching.

We had to feed the goats, of course. There was a volunteer hanging around in the goat yard area, who told us that the girls could come in and brush the goats. YAY!!!! This was apparently their fondest wish. Who knew?!? So we went off to brush goats.

The goats were super friendly, and enjoyed being brushed. But they were also REALLY interested in my phone. Every time I tried to take a pic of the girls brushing the goats...

Get off me!!

..someone would think that the phone was edible, and needed checking out.



What's that in your hand? Mind if I take a look?



This goat here actually jumped up on me like a dog just a moment after I took this - he put his front hooves up on my chest to check out my phone! Down boy!!



A little privacy please?



This goat was surprisingly compliant about posing for a pic while Ella brushed him. Hmmm, I wonder why? Well, see how her tail's up? Turns out that means she's about to poop.

Anyway, the girls had a ton of fun brushing the goats. It was a long day at the zoo (we were there until almost 2:00!) but really, really fun. We saw a lot of baby animals (Bactrian camel and sloth, in addition to the farm babies) and despite the weather, a lovely time was had by all.

A goat was trying to knock me down while I took this; that's why it's skewed.

Splash pad!

This Sunday, it was hot and muggy. Like over 90 degrees, with the kind of midwestern humidity where you just know that there's going to be gigantic thunderstorms later in the day (there were), and you can't wait for it to start raining because then it won't be so crazy humid outside. The girls and I thought, what's more fun on a hot and humid day than playing in the water? So off we went to the Minnesota Zoo, to check out their splash pad, which just opened for the summer.

When we got there, the fountains weren't on yet. So we went to the little playground nearby, called "Woodland Adventures."

Ella was a spider...

 And Maisie was a turtle.

We did that for a while, and had a little snack. And then it was time to play at the splash pad! The girls changed into their swimsuits, and were off. The next hour and a half was spent like this:

The girls loved it, and I did too. I ran into a friend whose kids were also splashing in the water, so we got to chat while the kids played. And both girls were tuckered out from 90 minutes of solid running!

This is definitely getting added to our list of fun things to do on a crazy hot day. We'll be back!

Weekend roundup

No story to today's post; sorry about that. Just some cute pics of what we did this weekend. What can I say? It's Monday and I haven't quite had enough coffee yet to build a cohesive narrative structure.

Ella and I played Candy Land at the Chatterbox on Saturday, while Maisie played Mario Brothers.

Then the girls drew pictures. Maisie is always drawing and writing these days; we go through little pads of paper faster than you could believe. Here's Maisie's picture of two cows, a mama and a baby.

Ella's taken up drawing too, like Maisie. Unfortunately I have no idea what her picture is... she told me but I can't remember.

On Sunday the "girl team" (me and the girls) went to the zoo. Here's a penguin fight!

The girls posed for a picture on the tortoise statue, at the top of the Tropics Trail.

We also went through the Minnesota Trail, part of which goes outside and past a bird feeder. There was a huge wild turkey hanging out there, eating bird seed off the ground. Maisie was suitably impressed by it.

When we returned from the zoo, Ella took a nap and Maisie and I went to Target. Check out her addition to our shopping list...

That's WILD TRCEE (wild turkey). She thought it was hilarious!

Farm babies!

This weekend the Minnesota Zoo opened its "family farm" for the season with the arrival of farm babies! It was supposed to be beautiful outside (weather prediction FAIL: they said it'd be 70 on Saturday; when we left the zoo at 11:00 it was only 45, and windy too!) so we were excited to go see the babies.

As expected, the farm babies were EXTREMELY cute.

The lambs and kids were probably my favorites. They were adorable! Most of them were super playful, jumping around through the straw on the floors and even on each other.

Even when they were snuggled up under a heat lamp to keep warm, they were so cute.

SNUGGLES! We also saw ten-day-old piglets, two-week-old calves, baby bunnies, and peepy little herds of ducklings and chicks (hiding inside, out of the cold).

Of course, our own kids are pretty cute too!

Playground at the zoo

A few weeks ago we went to the Minnesota Zoo and discovered a new (to us) playground, just off the Grizzly Coast.

Maisie loved everything about it. She even enjoyed this giant horrible mosquito thing.


Ella, on the other hand, gave it her best "what you talkin bout, Willis?" face.


We've had other adventures recently, notably two trips to Iowa to visit the many Dieter cousins! However, we forgot to take pictures while we were there. So as soon as I steal a bunch of pictures from Clare's and Shauna's blogs, I'll post them here. :)