We woke up bright and early, so we could get to the zoo close to when it opened for the day. We got up even a little earlier than we usually would have, so we could celebrate Abe's sixth birthday.
He didn't ask for much. He wanted Legos and a Switch and Go Dino. Done and done.
He didn't want cake. He wanted a cookie. I tried out the recipe for a giant cookie, and even put frosting on it. Abe liked the cookie, but requested no frosting. He really made things easy on me.
The boys watched a movie in the car, and that got us through most of the ride.
Simon zones out entirely when he's watching a movie that he likes.
I have wanted to go to the Columbus Zoo for a few years now. We finally made it! It is a huge zoo, and we were worn out by the end of the day. It was a lovely day to be outside. We had been cooped up inside due to the cold and snow for far too long.
We decided to start at the aquarium. It has a huge tank and really cool fish. There's a touch pool as well, but it wasn't open yet when we arrived.
Some artificial mangrove trees reminded Andy of his time spent in Honduras.
They have manatees! I remember doing a report on manatees in sixth grade. It was cool to see two. They have a neat set up in Columbus where injured manatees go there to recover and heal, and they are released again in the wild when they are ready. There is one manatee who is a permanent part of the zoo because she was run over in a boating accident and her tail is too damaged for her to survive, but they said the other one that is currently there is within 6 months of being released.
We loved the reptile house.
There are giant tortoises.
The boys really wanted to ride on the carousel. It is really fun to be able to say yes to the simple requests of our boys that make them so happy.
We got to walk through the kangaroo area.
I don't remember what this is. It's quite large, whatever it is. Maybe a komodo dragon?
There were many species of monkeys to check out. Here are our crazy monkeys. Abe was grumpy here for some reason.
Simon finally took a short nap.
Meerkats?
I forgot to take pictures, but they have a huge multi-story playground that the boys played at while we ate our picnic lunch. The slides were painted to look like bugs.
I also didn't get any pictures, but the boys and Andy rode the train. We all needed a break from walking. The Columbus Zoo is really spread out.
We checked into our hotel and then drove to Easton Mall. We got some food from the Cheesecake Factory. We had never been there before, but we heard the fried macaroni balls, avocado egg rolls and cheese cake were all amazing, so that's what we got. We were not disappointed. We also stopped by the Lego store to get Abe another birthday gift. Abe and Eli wanted one of each... Too bad we can't give our kids everything they want.
The hotel had a "warm dinner" from 5-7 pm. Andy and I had eaten already, but the boys enjoyed mac and cheese and hot dogs on the house. Score! Everyone was happy with that. We had planned on swimming in the pool at the hotel, but it's an indoor/outdoor pool, so it was pretty cold. Plus we were all wiped out from walking all day.
The next morning we got up to see it was drizzling out. I'm so grateful we did the zoo first day.
Not far from our hotel was the temple. Of course we had to swing by.
And also on the way was Ohio State University. Go Buckeyes! We jumped out of the car long enough to take a quick picture and we were on our way.
Our destination for day two was COSI. A hands-on science center that is great for kids.
Fun for everyone!
The water area was impressive. My pictures don't do it justice.
COSI had a cool little space area too.
There is an amazing play area for kids. I wish we had started there. Simon didn't want to leave.
I remember going to COSI back when I was a girl scout. The only thing that I remember was they have trained rats that play basketball on a tiny court with balls about the size of ping pong balls. I didn't realize until the end of the day that they still have rats that play basketball. Drat! It would have been fun to see, but we got some fun photos anyways.
There was a section with gadgets galore.
Simon was very well behaved. Especially since we had him strapped in a stroller two days in a row.
I liked the area about progress. It was set up like you were walking down a street during different times in history like 1900s, 1950s and 1990s.
We were exhausted by this point, so we came home in time for dinner.
I love family vacations. We had such a good time. There are many fun things to do so close to our home. I hope this year and in the years to come we can make time to do more trips like this.
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