A Mommy & Rory Day

Ever since we brought Quinn home, Rory has been a wonderful big sister. She has had her jealous moments here and there, but who wouldn't--Quinn needs a lot of attention and Rory doesn't get as much as she used to. I've been wanting to have a "Mommy & Rory Day" for awhile. We tried to make plans to go to the beach a couple of weekends ago, but the weather had other ideas. So last week, Nathan worked from home to take care of Quinn and Rory and I took off to Asheboro. Time to see the animals.

Rory is at such a fun age. She's so smart and talkative (obnoxiously so, sometimes). She loves her book and she loves talking about animals. We spent time earlier in the week talking about the zoo and how the animals lived there. I mentioned a few animals, but I didn't want to get her hopes up too much. There are no guarantees with zoos--if the lion isn't in the mood to be seen, you just get a bunch of grass. If you've never been to the zoo in Asheboro, it's divided up into two (giant) parts. One side is North America and the other is Africa. My game plan was to hit Africa first. Not that it would be an ideal situation, but we could happen across bears and alligators here in NC; I wanted Rory to see the giraffes and elephants (it certainly wasn't what I wanted to see the most).

The very first viewing spot was for the giraffes and zebras. Rory just looked for a few minutes, and then started yelling "horsey! horsey!" She just couldn't stop staring at them.

After the zebras and giraffes, we walked around to see the chimpanzees and gorillas. Rory couldn't have cared less about the chimps, but I thought they were pretty cool. The gorillas on the other hand, got her attention.

After the gorillas, we looped back around to the giraffe feeding station. We were able to get much closer to a giraffe there. He wouldn't come over to eat, but it was much better than our other view. Rory kept trying to convince the giraffe to come closer--"Hello, giraffe! Come here, please!" We watched him walk around for awhile and then continued on our way.

I really thought that Rory would love the elephant, but really, I was the one who enjoyed her more. She was so beautiful. It was just fascinating to watch her eat and walk. I was surprised at how close she was and how long she stayed there. Especially given there was a sign near the elephant enclosure that said it can be rare to get a good look at them because they shy away from noise--and I ran over there when I saw here and Rory kept yelling "El-phant!" She was quite the brave pachyderm.

We skipped out on going to see the rhinos because lunchtime was calling. But we did stop to take a picture with a cool rhino statue.

After lunch, we headed to the North America animals. This is the grizzly bear. He was waking up from a nap when we got to his enclosure. The heat of the day was really evident when we got to the North American animals. The Africa animals were in their element, but the NA animals were all in the shade or in the water. Mr. Grizzly was no different. He had been napping with half of his body in the water.

After the grizzly we took a stop at the KidZone. They had a really neat wall where the kids could either draw with chalk or "paint" on the wall with water.

The sea lions and seals were her other favorite exhibit after the giraffes. We stayed there for a LONG time. Every time I asked her if we could go, she would just tell me "no, no leave." When the sea lions would jump off and start swimming Rory would just laugh and laugh... I love that laugh. I even got her to bark like the seals. Loved it. (I asked how the seals were handling the heat and found out that the water was kept at 58 degrees, so they would just jump in whenever they got hot. 58 degree water sounded good. It was that hot.)

We had a great day. By the time we were leaving the zoo it was 4 o'clock. Rory had a long day and was super exhausted by the time we left. As we headed out, we stopped by the zoo store and picked up a souvenir. Unfortunately, it was very similar to toys that we buy for Darby and it was missing an eye within 20 minutes of being home. I sewed a button eye on in it's place. Gave it a little character.

She is such a sweet girl. I really had a blast with her. I'm looking forward to our next trip. :)