Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Living Desert

One of the fun places that isn't too far from us is the Living Desert, which is a small zoo and gardens in the Palm Springs area. A perk is that we were able to get in free on that first Saturday of the month (I love going on free outings:-) We had been here one time before when Makenna was younger. Last time she was pretty oblivious to most of the animals, but this time she had great fun seeing the animals, naming the animals, finding the butterflies, and just running around outdoors. We saw the area with the birds first
(I promise, there were birds in there:-)
and were glad that we put her lunch away before entering...
that could have been a whole different experience if we hadn't. Some of these birds were rather large and loud.

We also saw the "big kitties" which was hilarious because one jumped down from resting on a ledge in it's cage and started walking out towards us and Makenna was pretty much oblivious to it until it was right next to her at the glass.
She particularly liked watching the "woofies" (translated in non-two year old terms: wolves). They were fun to watch because they were running laps around their enclosure. We saw giraffes, zebras (which Makenna insisted were horses), and spent a good amount of time in the discovery area
(Sand Dune Slide)
and outdoor kids play area.


One of the funniest parts of our outing though was when, towards the end of the zoo, Makenna was getting a little tired, so she started wanting to ride on these animal statues that they had in front of certain exhibits. She decided that she wanted to ride on the piggy/warthog and would say "let's go piggy" and pretend that she was having a race.
Then she would insist that daddy sit on the big piggy while she sat on the little piggy. Whenever anyone walked by us they just had to laugh and comment on how cute that was. It is so funny the imaginations that 2-year olds have:-)
We ended our day by watching their huge model train go around the tracks and headed home thoroughly tired, but with smiles on our faces. I love spending time with just the three of us:-)