It's a Zoo Out There!

On Thursday morning, we took a trip to the Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia, SC. It is about an hour and a half drive but we had some company. My friend, Mindi, and her son Samuel rode with us which made the trip fun. We met Chrissie and Ali, Hannah and TJ, and Alexia and Kate there. Caroline has been to the zoo one other time when we went with Ben's family in Knoxville. But that was last summer, and she really wasn't as responsive to the animals as she was this time. It was hard to take pictures since we were all trying to keep up with the tots, but sometimes it is nice to just enjoy the moment.

It was a warm day in Columbia. Our first stop was the bears and when Caroline saw one, she reached out her arms and said, "I hold you!". I told her that she really didn't want to hold that kind of bear, and we'll just have to settle for her teddy bears. :) She also enjoyed seeing the giraffes and they actually came right up to us! We even fed one of them. The monkeys were really making lots of noise and Caroline kept saying, "hang" since they were jumping from tree to tree. She didn't want to leave any of the animals when we had to move on.

After eating lunch, we all rode the carousel. It was Caroline's first time to ever ride one and she wasn' t so sure about it once it started moving. I thought she would love it, but surprisingly was really solemn for the whole ride.

On our last stop, Caroline and Samuel both got on a turtle (not a real one, of course!) right next to the real turtles. The turtles were huge and came right up to us.


It was a fun day, but I think I was more exhausted than Caroline was! She only slept for 20 minutes in the car and then was up for the rest of the day. It is so much fun to do these kinds of activities now that she is older. Hope you all have a good week and thanks for checking in! Until the next adventure...