It's Labor Day weekend, which means time for our annual Zoo Trip! This was our 10th year of taking a zoo trip and we've visited Omaha (twice), Tulsa, Des Moines, St. Louis, Oklahoma City, Wichita, Kansas City, and Springfield so far. This year, seeing's how I'm nearly 38 weeks pregnant, I convinced my family that we really needed to go to the Topeka Zoo for 2 primary reasons: it's close to home and it's a pretty quick zoo to see. We started out our vacation with a lunch at A&W, and then checked into our hotel and headed straight to the zoo!
We had a little bit of trouble getting the hotel booked, and my sister Joy worked her magic with the folks at the Holiday Inn so that they agreed to throw in free zoo tickets for everyone!
Once we got there, the guys figured out the best route around the zoo.
Tyler, Brynn, and Kyla joined us at the zoo -- look at all of those cute penguins!
On our way to see the actual penguins, the kids each picked out their favorite species. . .
Although Calvin couldn't decide between the Macaroni penguin and the tiny little blue one.
Could that background be any more realistic??
The kids loved watching the penguins swim and dive in the water.
Next we checked out the cool rainforest exhibit (literally cool, it felt so good in there on a hot day!). The waterfall made a pretty background for some family pictures.
Watching some of the beautiful and interesting exotic birds. . .
The Bengal Tiger was so beautiful and came right up next to the kids!
The lions were also out!
A little sleepy, maybe, but out nonetheless.
The boys thought the hyenas ("African wild dogs" I think they were called) were so cool; I thought they were rather disgusting.
Heading in to see the orangutans. . .
This pleasantly plump primate was the kids' favorite.
Calvin especially liked the big black ape.
One more photo op with the big ape and we were off to play at Gage Park.
The kids certainly found plenty to climb and play on at the park. The spider web and wiggly worm provided all sorts of entertainment.
This picture cracked me up as Oliver is doing his best Jonah impersonation and who knows what Calvin is doing!
We finished up at the park and then went to Saturday evening church before going to dinner. We hadn't been to a Japanese steakhouse in a really long time, and in fact, my kids had never been so we decided that would be a fun dinner destination. It was a huge hit! Our chef was great and it was hilarious watching as the kids laughed at his antics.
(Kids includes Russ, of course.)
Oliver especially was amazed by the HUGE fire on the grill.
And the kids all loved trying to catch the shrimp in their mouths. This chef had some really good aim!
That day was Kyla Kay's actual first birthday, so they brought her a special birthday ice cream!
They even gave Kyla a souvenir picture to remember her first birthday dinner!
A delicious and fun dinner, for sure!
After dinner, we went back to the hotel where the kids enjoyed the "Turbo Twister" slide literally hundreds of times!
You never knew how Oliver was going to come out at the bottom (but he was always smiling)!
They never grew tired of the slide. . .
Miss Violet didn't venture onto the slide, but had a blast swimming all around the pool and hot tub.
The kids all loved the hotel pool and really wore themselves out swimming!
They liked the swimming pool, but almost equally as much, they liked the pool tables. Plenty of rounds of pool were played before the vacation was over.
The next day, we took the kids to a fun place called "Going Bonkers" where they could burn off even more energy, running around all of the tubes and tunnels.
It was another very successful Labor Day Zoo trip for the Dwyers! It doesn't seem possible that we've had this tradition for 10 years already. Where will we visit next year? We will certainly have more possibilities as I won't be 9 months pregnant!
