We were beating a record for us, we were all ready to leave at 7:45, which I thought was late since we wanted to meet at the zoo by 9:30 and I thought it was a two hour drive, but it turned out to be a little under 2 hours so we were expected to be there by 9:30 (we made it by 9:40). Unfortunately, we were a little too eager to get there apparently, because Stace and Sam were a bit delayed. The good news is this gave us plenty of time to get into the zoo, get sunscreen applied, and let Cara get some wiggle time out (since we knew she'd probably be in the stroller for a good chunk of the day) by walking around this planter edge that was in the shade. Larry was so sweet and let me just sit while he walked around it with her.
Once we were all there and ready to go we explored the zoo that also was a botanical garden so there was quite a bit of shade around it. This was nice since the zoo was so large! We got to go see a dinosaur area with animatronic dinosaurs that roared and moved, which Cara seemed to love! She kept laughing at them, which was surprising for all of us. We expected her to be more scared. We also went to a sting ray encounter where you pet them AND for $2 you got some fish parts and could FEED them! Larry bought like 3 cups worth, one he fed to them, one he shared with me, and one he shared with Stace's boys (although only Ollie wanted to). It was a pretty weird feeling, but such a cool experience. The best part about that is it brought the sting rays up closer to the top of the water so I think Cara actually got to touch one and they splashed us (which was awesome in my book).
After a few more hours of walking and seeing more animals we decided it was a good time to stop for lunch and the splash pad (yes a splash pad IN the zoo!). This was a nice break for me. Stace doesn't like paying for zoo food (who can blame her? It is pretty pricey), but I HAD to eat a meal so Larry and I ate and then went to the splash pad with Cara in her swim suit. Stace and Sam wanted to go see a 4-D "movie" in their theater, but since we had just gotten there we decided to stay behind with any of the kids that wanted to keep playing. Cara seemed to have a really good time with it.
After they got back from the show (which turned out to be an animal show, rather than a 4-D show), we walked to more cages and saw more animals. After a couple "displays" I had my fill, I didn't realize, but we had been there for 6 hours already! We headed out, but I decided some dippin' dots ice cream sounded good so I had Larry get some while I took Cara to get changed and go to the bathroom real quick. We also hit up the souvenir shop to get Cara (and minion) the typical zoo shirt and a book. Plus I found some animal puppets that I thought Cara would love. It was a good shop they had there! We then headed out to our hotel (sorry these are all the pictures I got for today, we just had so much fun I didn't get my camera out too much).
Now this hotel...it has been AWFUL so far. I've never been so disappointed with a hotel. The check-in was a joke! One of the cleaning ladies came out to say her son had been in a fight and she had to leave so she didn't get to cleaning room 309. Then the front desk lady informed us that was our room and it was the last suite available. I specifically wanted a suite so that we didn't have to share a room with Cara, but all they'd offer was a regular room with two full beds. They said they'd refund us the difference, but since we booked through Travelocity they'd have to let them know about the room change so that they could refund my card. Oh and the breakfast (we make sure we book hotels that offer breakfasts to help fill us, but I guess I didn't do my research as well on this one) was a "grab and go" bar with coffee and granola bars...wom wom! The whole hotel was really dirty and with all that I just had a bad vibe with it. Luckily we're only here for 2 nights, but so far I'm not impressed with this place! The only good part, which isn't because of this hotel, is I was sure I had left my phone charger at the last hotel (like I couldn't find it ANYWHERE), but as I was unpacking tonight I found it, so that was a relief!
We met up at Cracker Barrel for dinner (one of my favorites!) and even though I wanted to buy so much in the shop, I left with just our left overs :) We also hit up the grocery store again to get some real breakfast items we'll need and some milk for Cara. Originally tomorrow was supposed to be our beach day, but since the hurricane made the weather very uncertain we decided to change our plans to meet up for boba tea in the morning (which I'm excited to try. I've never had any, but heard good things about it. Maybe I can be a "boba tea" person haha), hit up a paint your own pottery place, and then a bounce house for the kids.
Another sad part to today is as we were giving Cara a bath, we noticed she had a bit of a sunburn on her shoulders and back and I realized we forgot to put sunscreen on her when we changed her into her swim suit, which showed more skin than her onesie, so now she's got these bright red shoulders and I feel SO bad (and also really hope she isn't in pain all night long).
Luckily we aren't meeting up until 9 so we actually get to sleep in a tiny bit tomorrow - score! Because of that, I'm going to bed now to get as much sleep as possible, so good night ya'll!
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