The Zoo

It's hard to think of a good title when you're so entirely exhausted! David and I are sooo pooped after leaving the house at 7am to make it up to the Nashville Zoo. It was our first true outing/excursion/adventure with our full family of 5. Wow, 5!!!

We had to stop half way there (at a vacant office building off the highway) for nursing and diaper changes. Kaelah peed through her first set of pants. Luckily, I had packed like we were gonna be gone for a week! The kids did not want to get back into the car after the stop, so we walked over to a gas station and bought some M&M's to coax them back into their seats.

We finally got to the zoo and were shocked at how many people there were; probably due to the holiday weekend. Yikes! We saw birds and meercats and elephants and giraffes, etc. The leopard was cool too because it came right up to the window and the picture we took looked like Haleah was petting it.

It was hot and David and I were wiped out by the 2nd hour there. The kids were hot and tired and hungry. We packed lots of food and it seemed to be all gone. We decided to go back to the car to convince the kids to nap while we took a short ride. David drove us around a nearby neighborhood and showed me where he once lived, where his father grew up and where he went to elementary school. It was neat. The kids napped about 20 minutes. Not great, but it was something. K.K. woke up to see the playground at David's old elementary school and got so excited that she woke up Haleah. So we had to take them over there to play.

After that, David and I reeeeeeeeeeaaaaalllllllllllly wanted to head home, but we knew if we had come this far that we better go back to the zoo. And there was a jungle gym at the zoo that Haleah saw and wasn't about to forget about! So we went back.

All in all, it was fun. All of the parents there looked like we did at the end of the day. And our kids all seemed to be acting the same way as well. There was an understanding there. We got back in the car and headed back to Alabama. We ordered a pizza via phone on the way home, picked it up, crammed it down the kids' mouths at home, wiped them down, got them "jammied up" and brushed and "threw" the fussers into bed. (Whew. You can really sense my attitude here, huh?)

I am glad that we ventured out; but this will be something we only do once in a while. I told David, "We are NOT going to Disney World with our kids until all of them are past napping stage." So I've got about 5 years to plan that vacation...