Como to the Zoo

So I found out that every Thursday in March and April the Como Zoo does a storytime for the kids. They pick an animal and read the kids a story about it and then let the kids come up and either pet or at least see the animal they were focusing on. This sounded like Avery heaven. So when I found out Thursday was "Fantastic Frog Day" we invited our friends Jack and Lincoln and Tyson and set out.

As soon as you walked in they had a bunch of fun activities for the kids to do. Coloring stations, water splish splash stations, matching games, and good ole fashioned stuffed animals to play with.

Avery found the snake and started walking around saying "ssssss" at random strangers.

Here she is learning about tadpoles and frogs at a matching station.

They had these fun wooden frogs that when struck with a wooden mallet would make different sounds. Avery really enjoyed that.

Then it was time for story time. They read a fun story about frogs eating flies and such and we counted along with the book. Then they brought out the real live frogs....I was a little curious to see how Avery would react. We had recently found out that Avery only loved cartoon frogs and that the real thing were a whole different story. So upon first seeing the real frogs Avery started crying and shaking a little bit, but once she realized they were contained in jars/aquariums she calmed down and even wanted to take a closer look.

Then it was on to the monkeys. Avery, Lincoln, and Jack all loved the monkeys. There were some cute mustached monkeys (sorry no pictures of the actual little guys) that played with the kids, putting their hands up to the glass and interacting with them.

Then it was onto the gorilla. This guy was creepy. For one thing he was HUGE, and for another he would eat something, then throw it up in his hand, and pick out what he really wanted to eat and eat it again. GROSS, but the kids thought it was hilarious.

We played in the kids area for a while and then visited the lions, tigers, and the cougar. The cougar fast became Avery's favorite animal and she talked about it all the way home. "Cougar, again?"  I found it fitting seeing that both Greg and I graduated from BYU.