Brookfield Zoo

End of the day Ice Cream Cone...So delicious! Eli ate every bite!
Nate the beaver, was building his home in the children's play zoo.
Eli the bird-of-prey in his nest!
The boys got to pet a bunny in the children's zoo! They loved this so much... especially, our little bunny boy Nate.
Nate playing vet in the "animal hospital"
My dino-men!
Eli and a baby t-rex! This dino-boy was in absolute heaven!
Eli, daddy, and Nate hanging out next to the t-rex!
Eli following the dino foot-prints and telling me all about the dino robots!
Worn out king men! Hanging out with a sea lion.
The zoo boys outside of the dolphin exhibit! The dolphins were beautiful (but not as beautiful as my guys).

What a day we had today! We drove about 2.5 hours into Chicago to the Brookfield Zoo! It is such a treasure! We fell in love with the gorgeous animal habitats and the wonderful grounds. Our favorite animals were the dolphins, sea lions, and bears (polar and alaskan brown)! The boys also loved the children's play zoo where they got to pretend to be vets, birds, lizards, they "cleaned" the lemur exhibit and much more!

The clear highlight of the day: The Dinosaur Alive exhibit! When you walked into the exhibit there were chomped on and stomped on safari jeeps that Eli was convinced a t-rex had gotten too! There were at least 20 different robotic dinosaurs from a t-rex to a triceratops! Thats right, robotic dinosaurs. They looked so real! It absolutely blew the boys minds (especially Eli). The dinosaurs moved, roared, stomped when people walked by them. They were actually real-to life sized which made for some spectacular moments! We made a tactical error of going to the dino exhibit pretty early on. For Eli, all real animals paled in comparison to the robot dinosaurs... he is so his father's son!

We love these day trips and this one was the longest yet. We spent 4 hours at the zoo which was awesome! We can't wait for our vacation next week in Saugatuck, MI. We are already planning on taking a couple of one-nighter trips to chicago this winter to break up the winter blahs and see the great museums in the city!