This past weekend, we took a trip to Des Moines to visit the zoo. We wanted to make sure Ellie got a small vacation before the baby came and didn’t leave much summer to take one.
She was in love the minute we walked out and saw the first animals – the “mingos”.

We fed the fishies…she loved throwing in the fish food and watching their mouths open to eat it.

And then…daddy scratched the “big thing”‘s head. He asked Ellie if she wanted to scratch its head (and the big thing was actually pretty friendly), and when he got her close enough, she just started screaming and crying hysterically. Nathan and I, being the type of parents we are, thought it was hilarious and were laughing…while all the other parents around us are looking at Ellie and saying things like “oh, the poor thing…” By far, the highlight of our day so far!

Other highlights of the zoo for Ellie…the penguins

the lions

and the elephants…she keeps telling everyone now that we’re home that she saw elephants at the zoo. She was up on Nathan’s shoulders in the arena where the elephant presentation was and was wiggling all around, grabbing his eyes, hair, etc…at one point, she reached down, grabbed his ears and said “wiggle, wiggle, wiggle”. We don’t know where she gets this stuff!

After the zoo…the rest of our day was spent with Ellie’s Great Grandma Friesen…by far one of our favorite people.