Friday Field Trip!

For our Friday field trip this week, we embarked on an exciting (and exhausting!) adventure at the Bronx Zoo. I'm still experimenting to find out the best way to travel on the subway with my crew of 5, so today we started out with Josiah in the sling and Joey in the umbrella stroller. It proved to be a false start. The umbrella stroller isn't working right (it's been ages since we've used it) so we abandoned that idea, made a mental note to check Craigslist for a better small lightweight stroller, and took the jogging stroller (that we've been using daily) instead. Turns out it takes a good 45 minutes to get to the zoo by subway, but it wasn't too bad. And this smart mommy transferred at a farther-away-than-necessary station just so that we could use the elevator to switch to the uptown platform! Hey, slowly but surely I'm learning!!



Here are the older 4 at the entrance of the zoo...


Our first stop was the Wild Asia Monorail. Now most of my zoo-going experience has involved 100 degree weather, sweat, and lots and LOTS of walking. Not so here! This is my kind of zooing! (Hey, it's my blog and I'll make up verbs if I want to.) We got to sit in this nice little train car while seeing the animals of Asia with a "tour guide" narrating the whole thing. Nice!
And of course the boys like anything train-like, so everyone was happy!








Apparently when you're 5 months old your socks are much more interesting than wildlife.


Here are the boys in front of some sort of monkeys. Joey is really into Monkeys. Next to yum yums, they're one of his favorite topics of conversation.


After visiting Asia, everyone was ready for lunch. Of course I wanted to go to the restaurant that we get a discount on with our zoo membership, and of course it is on the other side of the zoo. But never fear, like I said before walking is pretty much optional here, so between the zoo shuttle and the Skyfari, we chose the Skyfari.

This ended up being a bit scary. Not because of the nature of the ride itself, but because they split us up. Yes, the posted signs did say limit 4 people/680 lbs., but I kind of figured that it was an either/or type thing. Now, my tall skinny kiddos weigh a combined total of about 160 lbs., and while I'm not about to divulge on this blog my actual weight (hey, I've had 5 children in 9 years, lol) I can assure you we fall way WAY under 680 lbs. Still, no go. So I send Joshua, Jonathan, and Jordan in the car ahead and Joey, Josiah, and I go in the next one. No biggie, until I see the signs plastered inside the car: Absolutely NO shaking/swinging the car...extremely dangerous (my paraphrase). I'm just watching them in the car ahead of us, waiting for it to start swinging precariously and then plunge into the zoo below. Thankfully, the boys behaved (hey, 2 of them can read that sign...and know what danger means...sometimes) and there were no incidents!

Looking from my car into the car containing Josh, Jon, and Jordan...


A nice, calm, non-swaying car containing Josh, Jon, and Jordan...(whew!)...


Joey


The view from Skyfari...the jungle-y area is the zoo, then behind that the Bronx. The really hazy buildings in the background are the Manhattan skyline. It was much cooler in person, really.


Jeremy joined us later in the afternoon and took the boys on the Bug Carousel.








Next we headed over to the Children's Zoo. This area is really well done, and in the future we could easily spend a couple hours here. But it was close to closing time and we'd promised Joey we'd make it to the Monkey House, so we pretty much rushed through this.

Look at the cute little baby birdies sitting in their nest!


Jordan in the prairie dog town.


Daddy helps Joey get up close to a prairie dog...


Jonathan and Joey...


Jordan and Joshua...

Climbing a giant spider's web...thankfully there was no sign of the spider!

Joshua

Jordan


Checking out some salamanders...

For someone confined to a stroller for most of the trip, he sure was happy!

Jumping like a bullfrog...

Jordan jumps so far and so quickly he almost warps into some alternate dimension...

I really wanted a bunch of these ears, since so very often my poor children tell me they didn't hear me, but alas, they were bolted down.


Feeding a goat...

And a sheep...

Going back on the Skyfari (with an adult in each car this time...yay!) I tried to hold the camera out in front of me and get a picture of Josiah, who was in my lap. My aim was obviously terrible, but the results were too cute not to post!

Joey looking out over the zoo.

Please check back later for more of our adventure!