vacation day at the omaha zoo

My last post was about how we finally went for a real family vacation. After we awoke at Dave and Kathy's, we headed straight over to Omaha for the Zoo. This was our second time at the zoo. The first was back in 2011 and funny enough, Kathy watched baby Samuel so we could go with a lot less hassle. She's still blessing us even though we've both moved. 

Our first stop was a quick run through the cat house. We had to move fast because we wanted to see the bears fed at a specific time. My only regret of the trip was that we didn't come back to the cats. They're my favorite. This leopard is stalking my kids.

Right around the corner from the cats were the bears. This is a sun bear who climbed to the top of it's tree to catch its food thrown from the trainer dude. We also saw a polar bear dive and swim and some black bears.

Next we went into the gorilla house. They were up to the usual monkey business - either napping or whipping around a shirt and then soaking it in water. Noah looks just enthralled.

After the monkeys we sat down and ate our pack lunch and Ezra fell asleep for about a hour. That's pretty good for him!  

I teased Terry not to take my photo since I forgot my mascara, but he broke my rule just this once. At least I have proof I was there too.  

After lunch we watched the koi fish fight over food. I thought it was so gross. Swirly, slimy mass of sucking fish! But now at home we joke if one of the kids is hungry (usually Samuel or Ezra), we call them a koi fish since they hold their mouths open just like the fish did, waiting for food to go in. 

After letting the kids play at the playground for a bit, we went over to the sea lions, ate some ridiculously expensive ice cream and watched them be trained and fed. It'd be fun to be a sea lion. 

Then we hiked all the way up the steep hill to see grazing rhinos.  

On our way to the cheetah we passed through this garden with little animal statues. My kids always sit on stuff like this. 

I think it's funny.  

Evie is especially funny! The goose.

Noah's favorite animal is a cheetah and we were able to see one, though he was far away by the fence. At least he wasn't sleeping. 

Then the tall giraffes.  

We went in the butterfly house mostly for Evie but it was really cool. So pretty. 

Poor Ezra had kind of a less than ideal time at the zoo. He did great, but since he can't walk yet he was confined to the stroller. But strollers weren't allowed in with the butterflies. So daddy had to clamp him down in his arms and he didn't like that. He wanted to play with butterflies! Or perhaps to eat the fruit they had laid everywhere...

I liked the turquoise color of this one. 

We saved the aquarium for the hottest part of the day at about 4pm, but first the kids had to play with the earth ball fountain thing. 

Ahhhh, the cool dark aquarium. I wanted to nap. The penguins were fun though. 

We spent quite a lot of time in the tunnel area. We let Ezra down to crawl a bit and just admired the pretty. Look at Samuel's face. Too funny! And you can see Terry's reflection, and Noah's too. 

My goofy girl. 

Noah looks extremely huge and stretched out in this picture. Can he be that big in real life? Crazy.

The eels, flotsam and jetsam. 

One last look at the aquarium.  

This little guy in the gift shop made up for missing the cats a little. I was enamored with his eyes. How do they glow like that?! 

We went to the jungle house last and were so done. After seven hours of walking and looking our feet and eyes were tired. We drove back to Lincoln and ate some good ol' Runza and went to bed.