ZOO fun!

Last weekend, we found ourselves with a beautiful Saturday, temperatures in the 70's, and a beautiful little girl who had just turned six months old.  After I went to a fun baby shower, we had a gorgeous afternoon to kill and decided we should celebrate sweet Bailey's half birthday with her very first trip to the zoo!

Scott and I LOVE the zoo and were definitely one of those semi-creepy couples - or at least it seemed that way at the time - who would spend way too much money pretty Saturdays at the zoo just the 2 of us amid the waves of screaming children and exhausted parents, sitting through the seal shows and trying to catch a glimpse of the polar bear swimming past the window pawing at his big red ball.  

For the first time, we were the exhausted parents (the random couples aren't so weird, by the way), and the zoo was even more amazing!  Bailey is still too young to really appreciate the animals, but we had so much fun picking her up and showing her everything and (of course) taking fun pictures.  

First, we checked out the tigers: 

Then we checked out the giraffes - aka real-life Sophies 

Bailey was so excited after this that she threw her actual Sophie out of her stroller at some point, leading me into a slight panic that resulted in a new Sophie being purchased the next day - which was, of course, the day before the zoo called to tell us someone had turned in Bailey's Sophie (they called it "the giraffe that squeaks") to the lost and found.  Oh, the many, MANY unnecessary expenses joys of parenting.

Then we checked out the bears:

And answered the age-old question of "Does a bear poop in the zoo?": 

 (Answer....yes!)

Bailey got a little sleepy during our stroll past some monkeys:

We thought she was going to keep napping through the pandas....

But then she got a second wind: 

She and her dad had fun watching the orangutans (as fellow gingers, I think they share a subconscious bond):

She told her dad who was #1, while wearing her adorable sunglasses (thanks Mimi and Pops):

On our way out, we got to hear the coolest thing ever - this lion was roaring so loudly, it sounded fake at first:

Then Bailey left the zoo on her dad's shoulders, the happy place of all little girls: 

"Mom, are you coming too?"  

[Random, off-topic sidenote confession...these are the first pictures since Bailey was born (not that I've taken that many) that have really made me feel like I look like a MOM.  Not a fun, young, cute-dressed mom, but the real, kinda sleepy, knit-dress-wearing kind of mom that still needs to lose those last 15 lbs of baby weight (that's a whole 'nother blog post, already in the works).  Kind of bittersweet, but this little girl is worth any and every gray hair and spare ounce.  Look at that smile!]