Military Appreciation Day at the Zoo

Last week the kids brought home fliers from school which advertized a military appreciation day at the zoo. :) Free admission, free lunch, activities, games, ect. Sounds like a great family day to me! So this morning we headed over to the zoo armed with sunscreen, water bottles, and lots of energy.

What better way to harvest that energy than to provide it with ice cream? As soon as we entered the gate, we headed over to the numerous tents. The first one we found was handing out ice cream--yummo!

Marcus was so happy to have his (and before lunch too!).




The kids really enjoyed seeing the police dogs.





We found a tent that had lots of crayons, markers, and animal face masks. The kids got to choose which animal mask they wanted and then got to color them. Jacob chose to be a lion.




Sporting their new masks.




They also had bean bag toss. Marcus loved this one too--and thought it was so easy. While his siblings were way back and trying to throw the bags into the holes, he just collected the bean bags off the ground and walked right up to the holes and threw them in....and was so happy with himself for getting them in! That boy cracks me up!

At another tent, they had all sorts of animal skins and furs. Marcus was absolutely tickled by this turtle.

We loved being able to feel all the different furs.

"Oooh, look! A zebra!....Hey! This is the tail!" --Evelyn's exact words. Her tone was "why isn't this thing connected at the end?"
What's a day at the zoo without some face painting? Julia requested a sea lion and Jacob asked to be a cheetah.
Evelyn wanted to be a purple tiger.


Right next to the face painting were temporary tattoos. Julia promptly found a gecko one (of course). So now she has Lizzy on her arm.