DARWIN is on his 12th year of teaching, currently at Springville High School teaching astronomy, geology, environmental science, and physics. He also teaches physics at UVU for a 7 week STEM summer school program for junior high students. He also teaches teenagers in our church ward. He's super busy, but still makes time to be an awesome dad and husband.
Darwin won entry for 2 adults to the Salt Lake Hogle Zoo at a conference he attended last winter. It was only good for this year so we knew we'd be going at some point this year. Our first attempt failed when our kids got sick over Memorial Day weekend when my cousins and their kids went. We were pretty bummed we didn't get the chance to go with them. Then we planned to go over fall break. It still didn't happen because I was swamped with work stuff and Darwin had deadlines for an online course he was creating. I really wanted to take the girls before the weather got bad, so our last shot was Halloween. We ended up going the Saturday before Halloween and it worked out PERFECTLY! We've never gone to the zoo around Halloween time, but it was a blast because not only did we get to see the awesome animals at the zoo, we got to wear costumes and go trick-or-treating too! Well, at least the girls did ;)
I felt like we did pretty good getting out of the house by 9am to drive the hour-ish it takes to get to the zoo from our house. When we got there my heart sank a little bit when I saw how far away people were parking because the zoo parking lot and the over-flow parking lots were both full! Yikes! I was beginning to think we should have picked another day for our zoo adventure. It worked out fine though. It was crowded, but it was really fun too. We saw probably 50+ girls dressed like Elsa and about half that number of Anna's. Those were definitely the most popular costumes. I personally think our girls made the cutest little pirates ever!
Right when we got inside I noticed Savannah had lost one of her brand new boots! Seriously?! Luckily some nice person had turned it into the lost-and-found already. Once everyone had two shoes on again we were good to go!
The giraffes were first up
(and last for us too! Aurora liked them so much we had to see them again before we left)
We got in line for the choo-choo and didn't realize until we got to the train entrance (after standing in line for 20ish minutes) that you had to buy separate tickets to ride it. So, the girls and I held our place in line while Dar line-jumped to go buy tickets. Again, it all worked out :) Unfortunately for Aurora, we ended up being in the very first train car right next to the "noise". Don't worry. She survived. ;) This was the only picture we got of the 4 of us while we were there, so it'll have to do.
We saw all kinds of animals that day. It was pretty special.
If you know Savannah, you know she LOVES animals! I think it's safe to say her very favorite that day were the elephants. She kept making elephant trumpets over and over again with the biggest grin on her face. She melts my heart a little bit sometimes :)
This is the oldest elephant in North America! I love how majestic she looks--wrinkles and all ;)
Savy watching the elephants :)
A momma and baby elephant
Standing next to the not-so-real, but still very-cool-looking elephant
There were fun Halloween decorations all around the zoo. This is the only one I got a picture of.
A white rhino
Pretty birds
They weren't animals, obviously, but the girls were pretty excited about the princesses they got to meet that day too!
We thought the gorilla looked kind of grumpy.
We were the only ones standing by the gorilla this time, but we came around by the gorillas a little bit later and there was a HUGE crowd so Rori and I went down again to see what was going on. There was a man down there dressed in a very real looking gorilla costume causing quite a stir for the gorilla. He was freaking out a bit and banging on the glass. We only stood there for about a minute when a zoo employee came over and asked the man to take his mask off because of how the gorilla was responding. Poor gorilla!
Seeing how we measure up!
The eagles have landed!
Savy was afraid of this otter statue. Silly girl. I guess she only liked the real animals!
Crawling through a log
It was surprisingly hot that day! I was thinking it might be nice to go for a dip with the sea lions ;)
I love that they have observation windows so you can see the animals under the water too. Awesome!
I think Savy ate half her Halloween candy before we left the zoo :)
They'd get super excited when the sea lions would swim by the window. I'm not going to lie. It was pretty cool to see.
Daddy accidentally took some pictures while we were standing in line to buy souvenirs. This one cracked me up a little bit :)
After buying the girls each their own sea lion, we sat down for a yummy lunch! The garlic fries were delish! It was way past nap time at this point and I had to get home to make my food assignments for our ward Halloween party that night so we didn't get to see the reptile house or anything. We didn't get pictures of some of the other animals we saw: monkeys, lions, tigers, polar bear, brown bears, llamas, etc. But we saw lots of really cool animals!
Before we left, Daddy gave the girls a science lesson :)
And we took one more look-see at the giraffes before we headed home.
It was such a fun day! The weather was awesome and the animals were fun to see. But, most of all it was just SUPER nice to take a break from our busy life to spend a fun day together as a family. Those are some of the moments I live for!
The giraffes were first up
(and last for us too! Aurora liked them so much we had to see them again before we left)
We got in line for the choo-choo and didn't realize until we got to the train entrance (after standing in line for 20ish minutes) that you had to buy separate tickets to ride it. So, the girls and I held our place in line while Dar line-jumped to go buy tickets. Again, it all worked out :) Unfortunately for Aurora, we ended up being in the very first train car right next to the "noise". Don't worry. She survived. ;) This was the only picture we got of the 4 of us while we were there, so it'll have to do.
We saw all kinds of animals that day. It was pretty special.
If you know Savannah, you know she LOVES animals! I think it's safe to say her very favorite that day were the elephants. She kept making elephant trumpets over and over again with the biggest grin on her face. She melts my heart a little bit sometimes :)
This is the oldest elephant in North America! I love how majestic she looks--wrinkles and all ;)
Savy watching the elephants :)
A momma and baby elephant
Standing next to the not-so-real, but still very-cool-looking elephant
There were fun Halloween decorations all around the zoo. This is the only one I got a picture of.
A white rhino
Pretty birds
They weren't animals, obviously, but the girls were pretty excited about the princesses they got to meet that day too!
We thought the gorilla looked kind of grumpy.
We were the only ones standing by the gorilla this time, but we came around by the gorillas a little bit later and there was a HUGE crowd so Rori and I went down again to see what was going on. There was a man down there dressed in a very real looking gorilla costume causing quite a stir for the gorilla. He was freaking out a bit and banging on the glass. We only stood there for about a minute when a zoo employee came over and asked the man to take his mask off because of how the gorilla was responding. Poor gorilla!
Seeing how we measure up!
The eagles have landed!
Savy was afraid of this otter statue. Silly girl. I guess she only liked the real animals!
Crawling through a log
It was surprisingly hot that day! I was thinking it might be nice to go for a dip with the sea lions ;)
I love that they have observation windows so you can see the animals under the water too. Awesome!
I think Savy ate half her Halloween candy before we left the zoo :)
They'd get super excited when the sea lions would swim by the window. I'm not going to lie. It was pretty cool to see.
Daddy accidentally took some pictures while we were standing in line to buy souvenirs. This one cracked me up a little bit :)
After buying the girls each their own sea lion, we sat down for a yummy lunch! The garlic fries were delish! It was way past nap time at this point and I had to get home to make my food assignments for our ward Halloween party that night so we didn't get to see the reptile house or anything. We didn't get pictures of some of the other animals we saw: monkeys, lions, tigers, polar bear, brown bears, llamas, etc. But we saw lots of really cool animals!
Before we left, Daddy gave the girls a science lesson :)
And we took one more look-see at the giraffes before we headed home.
It was such a fun day! The weather was awesome and the animals were fun to see. But, most of all it was just SUPER nice to take a break from our busy life to spend a fun day together as a family. Those are some of the moments I live for!
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