Nashville Zoo!

On Thursday Britni and I loaded up our boys to go meet some friends (Amanda and her daughters Coraline and Willow and Samantha and her daughter Amelia) and my cousin at the Nashville zoo!  It's a very easy drive, almost entirely freeway.  Eamon took a nap on the way up there and the three boys watched Despicable Me 2 on 3 different screens because technology.

Trying to nurse distracted Eamon.

4 boys, 4 car seats.

Parker and Connor coordinate!  This caused me some confusion.

Hot baby is hot.

We started looking at the animals on the Savannah loop.  Then we went to lunch early to avoid crowds, which went great!  There was no line in the cafe went we got there and we had our choice of seats.  By the time we were done with lunch, the inside was filled up and there was a line 5 people long.

After we left (and half our party went potty), my cousin Ann Laurel came to hang out with us!  She lives in Nashville and has boundless energy.  I was feeling a little defeated after our short time walking around before lunch, but with another adult- who wasn't directly responsible for any children- it was downright pleasant!  Always have a floater.

Connor came up to me and said, "Mama,
I have to show you something!" and lead me
over to look at the meerkats.  It was precious.

Baby brother.

I had to beg him to leave the meerkat tunnel.  It was like an oven.

Looking at some turtles in a pond.  They cared more about this
than the elephants or giraffes.   Or most of the animals.

Ann Laurel took my camera and got a
bunch of pictures.

Putting Eamon on my back was a great decision.  He got to see
and it wasn't hot at all.

I had to beg Connor to leave the turtles.

The zoo has a new exhibit of kangaroos!  They have several (like 20?) in an enclosure and you are allowed to pet them if they come onto the sidewalk.

Right after we walked in, one of them hopped over the sidewalk and Connor got to pet one!  He was super excited!  He talked about it many times the rest of the day.  He tried to go off the path to pet more later, but we stopped him :)

Outside of the zebra, ostrich, and some kind of deer-like creature enclosure, we took some group shots!

Thank you for the juice boxes Samantha!

The only one not in this (besides the camerawoman AL) is Willow.

Seriously, having Ann Laurel there was so amazing.  All the mamas but Samantha had two children to wrangle, so having an extra person was great.  She ran ahead with Parker and just had so much fun with all of them.  It was great to catch up with her and hear about how her family is doing too, even though I wish we could have done more talking.

I love Amelia's laughing face.

When we got to the alligator area, it was completely blocked by kids.  Connor was not deterred at all.  Before I knew what he was doing, he had climbed up on the sill of the big tank window and wedged himself between several much older children.  Again, it took me a long time to coax him away from it!

The Nashville zoo breeds cloudy leopards, and one of their leopards is named Tula!  I told the zoo keeper/docent (or whatever he was called) about my Tula carrier and he thought it was funny.  He asked me if I had one that was named after the other girl cat in the exhibit, Nori.  Ha!

 Our drive home was funny because I totally spaced and missed the exit for 565 and didn't realize it until I passed the Priceville exit, which I only know because it's Jessica's exit.  It only added about 20 minutes to our trip, but it made me realize how much I'm dependent on navigation from my phone.  Next time I won't turn it off.  Oops!

My super sweaty boys after getting home and nursing together.

We're planning on going back again this summer, hopefully when Paige (Will's girlfriend) is off of work so we can see her!  Britni said she would go with us, so I hope we can make it work!