Tuesday, March 9, 2010

members only

The Oklahoma City Zoo has been working on a new Children's Zoo Exhibit for about two years now and it finally has its grand opening this Friday!! Today, though, was a zoo member's preview of the new children's zoo and so we met Rae and Elia at the zoo this afternoon to take our preview tour and enjoy a beautiful spring-like day at the zoo! The first day we've been to the zoo since last fall! WooHoo!!!

We arrived at the zoo a bit early and ate lunch and then let the kids look at the sea lions while we waited for the children's zoo doors to open...


Finally, we made our way to the LONG line at the entrance of the Children's Zoo Exhibit and waited our turn to enter. There was an adult entrance and a separate kids entrance right next to it! The kids entrance is this tunnel walk through! Cool huh!?!?

Right when you walk through the entrance you are greeted by these large beautiful birds! Well, I think the birds were excited to finally see some kids coming by their cage because as soon as the mad rush of people began walking by, the birds went nuts, flying around the cage and squaking really loudly! It was funny and Ashtyn really liked them!

The kids zoo is separated into three different sections...the "my forest" section, the "water works" area and the "underground zone"!! First, we walked through the forest!!



All of the walkways were created out of different and unique materials! This walkway was particularly cool...made from cut pieces of tree trunk!

Then we came up to a flock of flamingos where they had an exhibit set up that taught you how the flamingos lay and hatch eggs! They even had little fake nests set up with pretend eggs in them so that the kids could experience just what the flamingos do! It was pretty funny to see the kids sitting on their lifesize nests!





There are different areas set up all over the children's zoo where grown-ups (or kids) can sit and relax! They'll definitely come in handy over the summer when the crowds aren't as big and we can let the kids actually linger and play in each exhibit!

The water exhibit wasn't open today because it's still a bit too cold to go romping through the river bed but once it does open this will be really cool! The river bed is covered in rocks and will be fed by a huge waterfall at the edge of the children's zoo! I can't wait!!!

One of the kids favorite parts of the children's zoo was the spider monkey cages! The monkey's were really active and hilarious PLUS there was a giant rope that the kids could swing on themselves and pretend they are a monkey too! SO COOL!!! When we got closer to the glass, right in front of the monkeys, one of the monkeys came right over to Elia! It was really cute but became really funny when we realized that the monkey just wanted the dorito that Elia was holding in her hand! Literally, the monkey's little head bobbed up and down and side to side following wherever Elia's dorito went! That monkey was hungry! It gave us a good laugh!


Can you see him looking at the chip??? HA!!!

Another really neat thing in the children's exhibit was a net bridge the kids could walk across and a huge slide that came out of the side of a tree! The kids wanted to do these over and over but the crowds were so big that we let them do it a couple times and then moved on. Once we can go back it'll be fun to do this with them!




Finally, we came to the underground exhibit where you walk through this dark tunnel and see all sorts of creepy crawlies...NOT my fav, but the boys got a kick out of it!!

There was one exhibit in the children's zoo that we didn't get to do today...it was a net enclosed bird exhibit where you could buy a cup of nectar and actually walk into the bird cage and let the birds land on you and eat the nectar. We can't wait to do it but the line was SOOO long that we didn't want to wait and plus we were a bit worried that once we actually got in with the birds they wouldn't be hungry anymore after being fed by 100's of people in front of us! Anyway, I can't wait to go back and try it!
After we left the children's zoo we visited some of our favorite animal exhibits throughout the zoo! Do you think the "we may bite" sign is for the turtles or Maddox!?!? HA!!!!



What a fun day (and beautiful day) at the zoo!! I'm looking forward to MANY more days and many more special events at the zoo all spring and summer!! Can't wait!!

3 comments:

Teresa said...

Wow..looks like a great new addition to the Zoo...I haven,t been to the zoo in a couple of years...Makes me want to go again..!

Grma Pennie said...

I wonder if we will have time to go to the zoo in April or maybe we will have to wait unti summer.....

Erika said...

Rae and I were hoping we could get there while you guys were here! The boys would have a blast feeding the birds for the first time with Gramma and Grampa!