Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Indianapolis Zoo

Again, another wonderful trip. Though, I feel our Columbus Zoo (Jack Hannah's) is the best, this one had a few other things to offer that ours doesn't. Like the Dolphin Dome! We got to see the dolphin show- uh, amazing! I love dolphins. And the walrus! Well, you'll see in the pics why I'm lovin' him. And the polar bear was breathtaking. So, here ya go...

Sleepin'... again...





You know, I've never seen them actually cleaning out the tank before. That was kinda neat.

This here was one of the coolest things (and of course, Talon's favorite!) We were able to pet sharks! They were 'dog sharks' and sooooo awesome. They really liked being petted. In fact, this one that Talon's petting would come around and flip over onto his backside so that you could rub his belly! Too cute. I have a newfound admiration/appreciation for sharks... well, at least these guys.
Oddly enough, they had eyeballs like ours. I thought that was kinda creepy b/c I just thought they'd have like black eyes or something and then they kept moving them around like we do. Just FYI.










Isn't he beautiful?! I thought so.




Ahhhh. The walruses. These guys were in my top 3 of favorites.

They kept swimming around in the same pattern. The neat thing that we witnessed was that when they went back to what we thought was them wading in one spot, they were actually STANDING on their fins. I thought they had one tail fin, but they actually have two that are more like FEET! See?
Can you see the top of him and the bottom where his feet are standing up? That was sooo cool. They're so awesome.

This was the dolphin dome where you could walk under and see the dolphins swimming around. It was really hard getting a photo b/c they're super fast! So I took a shot of the dome and then just enjoyed what I was seeing. :-)
The coolest thing was that some of them were seperated into other tanks but they kept constantly hanging out and talking to each other. They'd swim away for like 10 seconds and then come right back and start talking again. I wonder what they were saying.... Aren't you glad Jehovah created everything soooo different, just for our enjoyment?!
And then there was the amazing dolphin show!
This was the splash zone. Andre, Tony and the kids sat there. I sat in the bleachers in the middle to get good pictures. Now I wish I woulda had them sitting with me b/c they couldn't really see what was going on until the dolphins came their way.
You see? I'm not sure they were feelin' that...They had this 'bio' area where everything in it was an entire 'desert' ecosystem. So, when you went in (including the weather/temp) made you feel you were in a desert.

Seeing a 3d ride... hhhmmm... Since when did they get "rides" at a zoo? We rode a little baby roller coaster, too. The kids loved it. Re is VERY skeptical of everything, but once she does it she doesn't want to stop!
These were so close you could feed them.



This guy has the best job EVER! Lazy thing! He barely moved to swat a fly...

Momma,
And the baby. I want one!

What's Been Happening Over the Last Two Months While I've Been Ignoring My Blog!

Wow! I can't believe it's been 2 months! I have absolutely NO viewers and am all to blame. I need to keep up better with this.

We have done buku things over the past few months. The kids have truly enjoyed their time off, and I've really enjoyed them being home!

Where to begin... trying to remember back that far!
Well, other than being completely obsessed with my yard- which is still nothing to brag about (until the heat sets in- I hate humidity!) we had a lovely getaway to Indianapolis.

The kids had a lot of fun and we had my cousin, Anthony tag along. He's truly become a joy to have around. I miss him while he's gone. (More about him later) Anyways, we got this package where we were able to visit the Indy Children's Museum and the Indy Zoo.

We went to the museum first. It was great, I highly recommend going there! It was very interactive for everyone!

Here's a little preview of our getaway...

It all begins with packing:






The morning of our trip, getting ready to go. Kids are like, "Aaa." Anthony's like a motor, "LetsgoLetsgoLetsgoLetsgo!" Hahaha. Bless his heart, he doesn't get to do this kinda stuff often.

Just one serious picture, please...

Thank you. But, where's my makeup? Makeup? I need makeup!All my babies!


Then, there's the 2 hour ride:

Re was already passed out! She can't hang!
Neither could Talon.
Then, there was Andre...






Who was driving!

(LOL! This is for the National Lampoons fans!)

And of course, the best part of hotel stay... jumpin' on the beds!




The museum truly was amazing!
There was this rather large (4 stories!) glass sculpture that was awesome.


The bottom of the sculpture was on a glass floor so that you could view it from the lower level.


This was kinda cool. This was a 2 story dino that they designed so that it's head is coming thru the upper the window.

This is the backside of the dino with the family.

This is definitely the right museum for the dino lover, like Talon! He's trying to make it look like he's being eaten by the dino. LOL!Of course, this was one of Talon's favorite parts; the museum superhero. Course, it may have something to do with the fact that he had dinosaur teeth in his pocket! Re's practicing to be a mama tut! They had a HUGE King Tut exhibit.This was a pretty neat dino exhibit. This is where a lot of the mythological dragons were based, esp in the Harry Potter movies- from what the scientists here were saying.


This was really neat, too. The "scientist" was chiseling away at the rock debris of this T-Rex thigh bone and the window was open so that you could touch it. Just felt like super hard wood, not quite like a rock, tho- which is what I thought it'd feel like. This was a neat little lab for the kids to explore mock fossils by measuring, comparing, feeling, etc. They really enjoyed it. They had this excavating area. The sand looks like sand, but it really was a bit tacky. Not quite sticky, but kinda hard to separate. They were trying show how hard it is to excavate these bones with just brushes in order not to damage the bones.






King Tut's guard. Oh yeah. That's a beast.
This was really cool, too. They designed this portion of the building to appear as though the dino's crashing out.





Gettin' my hair did!

Coolest game of Connect 4 ever!




Awwww...

They also had this really cool magic show. The kids loved it! Well... Re enjoyed it, Talon spent the whole time trying to figure out "how they did that".

Oh, and we can add this to the long list of places my husband has decided to take a quick nap. (Like when we went to see Bill Cosby's standup, or during my Lamaze (sp?) class - which I could understand if we just didn't happen to be the ONLY 2 PEOPLE THERE that day, or at our homebuying class - which I could understand if we just didn't happen to be the ONLY 2 PEOPLE THERE that day!) Trying our hand at drawing a dragon. Aw, Andre's concentrating sooo hard!

Another cool exhibit the kids enjoyed. It was a blue screen and on the TV was marine life. Talon decided to put on one of the costumes. They liked being on TV.Though, Talon did seem a little more excited by his shadow. Do you recognize this guy? He was the Museum Super Hero! This museum hires MANY local actors and he did great! He was very animated and the children learned so much by watching the (be it magoo sometimes) actors and their stories. He did great. Here he's crying b/c the train just couldn't get up the hill! Waaahhh!This was the solution. An engine that pushed not pulled. This was a CLOCK! I thought it was cool. It's ran off of liquid. The blue liquid shows the time. The left numbers are the hour, and the ones on the right are the minutes. Wouldn't it be neat if most of our electric items could be run like this? HHhhhmmm... This clock was 11:57a. It was only about 4 minutes off! They had this "culture" thing going on, so we got to see African drummers and Asian dancers.







There was a lot of neat artwork outside, too.

The kids were trying to copy the poses. Get out of the picture, Andre!
Of course, Andre couldn't allow the day to go by without abusing Tony!This post is too long! I'm gonna have to make another one for the ZOO! LOL!