Tuesday, August 29, 2017

Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium

Yesterday the boys and I left mid-morning to head down to Tacoma and hang out at the zoo/aquarium with friends who were pet/house sitting for their grandma down there. We did this same outing a couple summers ago; it was a lot more relaxing with a 5 year old than with a 3 year old! No tantrums were thrown, just a lot of excitement, and a lot less worry about kids getting lost.

They had several sea animal sculptures in the park, all made out of trash that had washed ashore. Mal liked looking at them all, but particularly enjoyed the octopus.



We started off the trip with a carousel ride. Last time Mal was too scared to go on, but this time he eagerly climbed aboard the lion. However, he did insist that I stay standing next to him for the ride. The animals were quite active this trip, despite the hot weather. We got to see zookeepers feeding a tiger and holding a talk with people about tigers and endangered tiger habitats. This elephant was working hard to try and get some bamboo leaves to eat.


Mal really wanted to see the birds. At first I wasn't going to pay for a seed stick, but quickly realized that it was a fairly inexpensive way to make the kids' day, so we got one each. Gareth's bird even started walking up his arm after finishing off all the seeds! At the end of the day, Gareth said the birds were his favorite.


The walruses, sea lion, and otters were a big hit again. The red wolves were napping, so not too exciting to see. After lunch, we got the kids ice cream.


Mal didn't want to leave the zoo, but we'd been there for nearly 4 hours and had seen just about all there was to see. I think everyone except for Mal was exhausted.  As we drove to Grandma's house, Mal kept trying to tell us we had missed various animals, even though we hadn't. Once at the house, Mal had a love/hate relationship with the dog, who is very friendly but also as big as Mal. The dog was overly excited to have new people around and kept wanting to chase Mal, which was scary for him. But as soon as our friend put the dog outside, Mal insisted he wanted the dog to come back in. Gareth did a better job of keeping him calm around the dog. When we got home Malcolm was very excited to recount every detail of the day to Ryan. We cut him off at some point because he needed to get in bed. This morning, as soon as he was up, he was telling daddy the rest of the details.

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