The Atlanta Zoo

Sophie, Abbie, Brodie, and Bradley with the pandas behind

all the kids posing by the gorilla statues

our only good family shot on the trip-Thanks Kathy!

Abbie liked the turtles a lot-she was reaching in and petting them. I guess she wore the perfect shirt that day!

On Saturday, we got up bright and early, stopped to pick up some breakfast and headed to the zoo. We met up with Kathy and Trent Burnett and their boys there. Matt and Kathy attended Harding together. It was the first time that we had seen them in years!  We had only seen each other's kids in pictures so it was wonderful to meet their boys in person.  They are really cute!  Our kids got along well.  Sophie and Abbie were both fascinated with the gorillas and Abbie liked the monkeys too.  We enjoyed being able to see the baby panda as well.   That afternoon, Abbie and Paula both took naps! 

Weekend Getaway

While in Atlanta, we went to the zoo. This family of apes and the panda bear exhibit were the highlights of our visit.

Zoo Atlanta has a giant panda exhibit. This picture shows the 14-month old Baby Panda "Mei Lan", which in Chinese means "Lazy" and the Mama Panda "Lun Lun" which means "Too Lazy to move Bamboo off belly"

baby panda-14 months old and about 65 lbs

Sophie pats the gorilla statue

Sophie hanging out

This past weekend, we decided to take a last minute trip to Atlanta. We figured that it might be our last chance to get away just for a fun trip before our baby comes in January. We had a great trip! We drove down on Friday afternoon and stayed in a nice hotel downtown. It had a really cool glass elevator that Sophie loved where you could see out over the whole hotel atrium as you rode it (it was a very large, fancy hotel) which Matt booked on Priceline. =) Every time Sophie talked about riding the elevator it sounded like she was asking to go on the alligator.

Anyways, on Saturday, we woke up to a cold morning in Atlanta and headed to the zoo. We were excited to beat the crowds to the panda bears there so that we could really watch them. They have a mom, dad, and baby panda. The baby was fun to watch because she had slid down a rocky hill and then she had to figure out how to climb back up. Seeing the panda bears made the whole morning worthwhile for us. We also got to see tons of other animals. Sophie enjoyed seeing the gorillas. They had some babies too. Sophie went up to the statue of a mom and baby gorilla and said, "it's OK" just like she does with her dolls at home. Sophie surprised us by willingly touching many of the animals in the petting zoo. Usually she is very skittish when she's up close to animals, but she didn't mind petting some of the animals this time.

Sophie also enjoyed riding the carousel at the zoo and jumping in a big pumpkin jump castle they had for Halloween. I'll include a picture from the carousel in the next post.