and the winner is.....

so for all those anxiously waiting our decision on friday, we went to the zoo. i decided to let jakob decide what to do and after explaining the pumpkin patch to him, he decided we should go to the zoo. it was already decorated for the fall with pumpkins and scarecrows so we got to enjoy some pumpkin patch atmosphere AND all the animals.

 it was a great afternoon for it too. most of the animals were out and about and it was not crowded at all! the kids loved it and i actually enjoyed myself too. we saw a few animals we were not able to see on our last visit and i think we actually walked around the entire zoo. 

I got to share a story with the kids about my lil sister's (tanta is what they call her) favorite animal. ha ha! probably her least favorite. she got pecked on the hand by an ostrich when we were little b/c she put her hand on the fence and the bird thought it was food. they were laughing as i told them and we were walking by and another boy did the same thing and got "attacked" as well. good times! brought back some fun memories for me! and a new memory for them too! some of our favorites were the giraffes and zebras. unfortunately jakob told his dad later that day that his favorite was the zebra poop.....nice. but he did talk about the 

snakes which were another of his favorite things. ella liked the bats (weird) but she also liked watching the wolves run around in circles (odd) but it was cute watching her watch them. she was very much focused on their every move

and of course your trip to the zoo would not be complete without the visit to the monkey house. unfortunately the orangutan had just finished lunch so he wasn't up for swinging around. but he was where we could see him so we watched him for a bit just chillin and relaxin. jake tried to tap on the glass but nothing worked. this chimp was ready for a nap. all in all it was a great day. 

below is how i felt by the end of the day but surprisingly enough, the kids still had energy to play on the newly finished playground inside the zoo. for a minute there a thought they were getting pooped and ready to leave, possibly even sleep in the car. nope, not even close. they were fired up and ready for the football game that night. go figure!