bloggers ate my babies: a trip to the toledo zoo

every summer the boys and i take a trip to the detroit zoo with the wood family and any others that want to come along. and almost every year that i tell people we are going to the zoo i am asked "have you been to the toledo zoo? it is SO much better!" so after last year i decided that this year we would head to ohio for our annual zoo trip.
this year we not only went with the woods (minus andrew) but jenn and rainah, and nancy and isaac gregg were able to join us as well.
as much as we don't like ohio, we sure did love one of their zoo's! their exhibits were so much better than the detroit zoo. it seemed like we were much closer to the animals and they even had elephants! something we've been missing for years at the detroit zoo.
we spent the whole day there and wrapped it up with a train ride and then a ride on the carousal. the kids all seemed to have a great time and were worn out by the time we got back in the cars. all of them fell asleep pretty quickly once we started driving. all except isaac and cordelia who apparently wanted to keep the party going.
once we got back home, we ate some dinner and then mom and dad came over to celebrate my birthday before we started packing for our weekend in....ohio. i'm spending far too much time in that state.
for those wanting to take a trip to the zoo, i highly suggest you drive a little further and visit the toledo zoo. we'll most likely be doing it again next year.

the first of many impossible photo ops:

watching the sleeping polar bear:

talan, hayden, ellanore, rainah and henry doing some monkey watching:

how much they weigh in monkey:

talan tried to tickle the gorilla:

another impossible photo op:

cordelia, talan, henry, hayden, ellanore, rainah and isaac:

rainah did not care that the baby monkey was sitting on it's mama's lap. she was going to sit there as well:

nancy and isaac:

the gang:

beautiful butterflies:

i believe hayden is making antenna:

giant crabs:

more giant crabs. how fitting:

as soon as hayden saw the sharks he ran over and said "mom! this is your BEST birthday EVER!!":

jellyfish:

this giant bee was after talan:

hayden and talan both looked a lot, but would never actually stick their heads in for a picture:

the hippo exhibit is SO much better than detroit's:

elephants at a zoo?! wha?!:

cordelia and talan:

he wore about 4 different pairs of sunglasses throughout the day. almost all went on upside down:

hayden stopped breathing for a bit and ellanore tried to help:

eventually henry came over to see what he could do:

rainah, henry, talan, hayden and ella:

hayden wanted to make us stay until the penguins jumped in the water, but we eventually persuaded him that they would not be swimming for awhile as they had just eaten: