Trip to Hogle Zoo

On Monday we took the twins on their first trip to the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City. We didn't get on the road until about 11:30 but we had a great time.

Hogle Zoo has a promotion where you can get tickets if you turn in 4 empty packets of Cache Valley cheese. We use a lot of if when we make pies so we were able to get 2 free adult tickets (and the girls got in free). Click here for more information.

I think my favorite moment was watching the girls go on the carousel there. They also LOVED looking at the animals and learning their names. We saw a llama and Maile kept calling it a la-mama but she did a great job of trying to pronounce all the other animal names. Joni was the fearless one and had fun sitting on the wooden elephant and posing with the statues. It was a little harder to talk Maile into doing it.

With the look on Joni's face you would think we weren't having fun. I let them watch The Little Mermaid on the way up and she started pouting when I turned it off (because they weren't falling asleep for their morning nap). I finally got smart and left the movie on and turned the volume off. They were sleeping in 5 minutes...

Me and Maile are waiting for the elephant show to start. Maile liked watching baby Zuri roll around in the mud.

Here is Maile hamming it up for the camera. She's so photogenic!!

Maile pointing at the elephant Kristie. She was scared at first but then loved watching them. Joni was more interested in trying to "fix" the stroller. She didn't watch the elephant show at all.

Mark and Joni posing on the rhinoceros statue. I love Joni's face here!

Mark and Maile. He was holding onto them carefully but they were both great and didn't try to climb around when they were there.

Maile and Joni petting the rhino statue. It does look very realistic! When I showed Kristina the pictures it took her a minute to realize that it was a statue.

Here is Joni with her "cheese" smile. She wanted to pose for the camera. We took this when we were looking at the giraffes.

2 of the giraffes outside.

Mark and the girls posing by the tiger. It came right up to the fence and the girls LOVED it. I tried to get a quick photo but wasn't quick enough.

Maile riding an ostrich on the carousel. They loved the movement and were very careful when sitting on the animals. Joni was initially riding on some type of deer found in Africa but it was broken (it didn't move up and down) so she was moved to a hippopotamus.

Maile and Mark having a great time. This is Maile's happy face. Mark's face (look in the mirror) is very happy too.

This is Joni's happy face.

I think this picture is my FAVORITE picture of Joni, ever. She looks so happy here. The girls had so much fun on this ride. I loved this ride because the adults got in free to supervise the kids. We got 4 for the price of 2.

After the carousel we took a break and got some dip n dots. I got each of the girls their own. It was HOT outside.

Here is Maile. She's doing a great job of following instructing and smiling while concentrating on her ice cream.

I am proud to say that my husband is as big as a male gorilla. The height is not as impressive as the arm span. Who knew he had gorilla arms?!?!

A quick picture of Joni and the gorilla statue.

Maile and Mark. She was a little hesitant to get on but Mark promised he wouldn't let her get hurt and then she was fine.

Joni on the elephant trunk. I thought it would be such a cute picture to have the twins both on there but Maile refused to get on. I was trying to talk her into it (standing in front of the elephant trunk) when the elephant 'sneezed' and got water all over us. She couldn't believe I let that happen, you should have seen how indignant she was!

We ended up settling for this picture. We went to the car shortly after this and the girls were asleep 5 minutes later. We had so much fun at the zoo!