St. Louis Zoo

On Sunday, we got up early and headed to the St. Louis zoo. It was a much cooler day than the day before, but the area had a round of thunderstorms go through the night before, so it was really humid. In the end, it was still pretty hot and sticky!

This zoo is also free - in fact, almost completely free! They did also charge $11 for parking - but many people had parked along the road leading up to the zoo. I didn't mind $11 for parking, considering what we were getting in return. We also had to buy $5 train tickets or we would have had a mutiny on our hands.

Of course, the first thing we had to do was ride the train. This train is excellent - it is a long train, goes through several tunnels, and actually has four stations. For your $5 ticket, you get four "station-to-station" rides - so you can get off at a station and then get back on and ride again. We rode twice, letting the boys ride through a station stop each time.

Here is Nate, watching the train go by shortly after we got off it the first time.

This zoo is amazing - huge, and amazing. We were there two hours (that's about all that the little feet could stand) and we probably didn't see half of it. By far, the highlight had to be the penguins. There was an outdoor penguin exhibit first...

Then we went indoors to a very well-air-conditioned area where the "cold-weather" penguins live. The boys really love penguins, and enjoyed watching them dive and swim.

The other highlight? Seeing the Nile Hippopotamus. Nile was so excited to see an animal that had "his name." The fact that they were huge and right up next to the glass was a bonus too.

Although we don't often buy "souvenir" stuffed animals, we did indulge the boys this time. Nate picked out a rhino, and Nile picked out his own Nile Hippo. They also bought the baby a small stuffed elephant.

Grant's Farm

We took a short weekend trip to St. Louis July 24-26. It was incredibly hot down there when we arrived, the temperature was 97 and the heat index was about 110! But we had three hours to kill before we could check in to the hotel so we headed to Grant's Farm to spend some time.

We had never been there, and honestly I had no idea what to expect. But it was pretty nice - and free (except for $11 to park). We got to take a "train" ride around and see animals, then were dropped off at the main park. There we saw an elephant show, where I caught this great picture of Tom and Nate. And a pretty darn cute one of Nile...

We walked around a little bit more, then the boys were hot and cranky (and so was my 7-month pregnant self), so we stopped at the beer garden for a free beer for Tom and some "Dippin Dots" for Nate and Nile.

(see how hot and sweaty Nate is? He totally takes after me.)