Going to the zoo

My niece and nephews have been in town all week staying with my mother-in-law.  My sister-in-law and I had the idea of taking them out for the day and we chose the zoo.  In my attempt to be timely, however, I forgot several very important things like sunscreen and a hat for the baby (it was going to be over 80 degrees) and a stroller.  Oh yes, 8 kids including 2 roaming toddlers with minds of their own and 2 babies and I had no stroller!  The worst part was I took the jogging stroller out of my trunk before I left thinking I had the double stroller in there, but I didn't have the base that the seats clip in to and so it was useless!  All we had was my sister-in-law's umbrella stroller that held the lunches.  At least we had a moby wrap and ergo for the babies or we would've been done in!

All in all it still turned out to be a great day!  The kids were fantastic!  It was a lot of fun hanging out with my older niece and nephew (ages 6 and 8), who were soaking up all the information they could.  My sister-in-law and I wanted to make sure they were getting something out of it instead of just helping their crazy aunts with the babies.  I loved seeing them love learning and telling me about all the different animals.  Next time I'm just taking them!

Ruby Red later told me her favorite part was seeing the sea lions underground and her big cousin Timmy teaching her all about the snakes.  It's adorable how she looks up to him and I'm glad they were able to spend some time together!

I wish I had a picture of them all but, alas, my camera battery was dead and I couldn't find the charger....:(

I was so tired afterwards that I dozed several times the rest of the afternoon.  Even my kids....no.....even RUBY RED was exhausted!!!!  I never thought I'd be saying that sentence!  My older two went down for naps at 4.  Ruby Red woke up at 8pm for some apples and peanut butter and went right back to bed.  We didn't see Baby Blue until 4am, where she had some quality time with daddy and then snuggled with him in bed until 7:30.

I'm so glad we were able to pull it off.  Next time, though, if I don't have a stroller it would be worth it to drive home to get it!