Tulsa Zoo

As told by Daddy:

Before Grandma Linda flew back home to Idaho, we met Kylie's cousins, Paeton and Braden in Tulsa and took them to the Tulsa Zoo. Seems like a good idea, right? Not such a good idea when most of the zoo is outdoors, during one of the hottest summers in recent history.

Even though it was hot enough to make a scorpion sweat, we had a great time! It was Kylie's first experience at a real zoo and she loved every second of it. (She has been so interested in animals lately.) If it wasn't the "ah-ahs" or the "turdles," she was laughing, screaming, and chasing around her favorite cousin, Paeton. Kylie and Paeton had a great time together. Paeton loved carrying Kylie around the whole zoo. It was great to get the cousins together for a day at the zoo.

Baby Emily, being just shy of a month old, had a hard time staying cool. It is hard to keep a baby cool when she either has to be in our arms, in the car seat, or in the stroller. Luckily, Grandma paid $12 for a cheap fan/spray bottle that we mounted on the stroller to blow on Emily and keep her cool.

We began the zoo experience with an observation of the monkeys. It was the closest building to the entrance and the nearest air conditioning. This impulse to find a/c quickly became habitual.

After the monkey house, we jumped on the train to the other side of the zoo to catch the feeding of the penguins. As soon as we got off the train we ran to the nearest building with a/c. You'll notice from the pictures that we didn't spend much time outside. We drank a lot of water, saw lots of cool animals, and had a great time with Grandma, Paeton and Braden. My favorite animals were the elephants. They were thrashing around a big tree branch to knock the leaves to the ground, then they'd scoop up the leaves with their trunk. Another elephant was eating hay inside and would take big drinks of water out of this little watering ditch. Finally, one of the elephants took a big tree branch for a swim in their elephant pool. It was pretty cool to see these massive animals "live on stage"!

Grandma Linda and the grandkids walking across the bridge, on their way to the Tulsa Zoo!

Emily did a lot of this at the Zoo: trying to stay cool!

Kylie is getting good at saying "Cheese!!!". Now we just need to work on her not looking so frightened when she does it...

Paeton loved hanging out with her little cousin Kylie.

We sure miss spending time with these kiddos.

Mama did good at keeping Emily cool and comfortable throughout the day.

Kylie loves cluck-cluck's.

This monkey was leaning right against the glass and I wanted Emily to have a picture with some of the animals so I put her right next to the glass. I guess she wasn't amused.

There was a lot of this throughout the day; Paeton holding Kylie and Kylie laughing with happiness!

So in love...

"Where have the taken me? It is flippin' hot out here!!"

No trip to the zoo is complete without a picture on a large metal animal.

I'm gonna hope that it is good luck to kiss the bronzed tortoise...

There was an empty pavilion on our way to another exhibit and it had a/c so of course we had to go inside for a while to cool off. The cousins ran around entertaining themselves while the adults mapped out a route of the shortest distances between air conditioned buildings. Once again, Kylie loved every second!

Up close and personal. This eagle was standing in this spot because there was a fan blowing to his left. I guess they place the fan their to give them an opportunity to cool off? You could tell these birds were not liking the heat. Maybe that's why you never see Bald Eagles in the wild in Arkansas.