When I found out that I was pregnant, I was ecstatic of course, but soon I did the math and felt sorry for this kid. She was destined to have lame Winter birthdays the rest of her life - think skating rinks and noodle necklace making. I'm an early March-er and it's always a toss up, but if you want to have it outside you better have an alternate inside plan because chances are it will be raining. Because I'm always looking for a reason to celebrate and I figured there was probably no chance of good weather in February (except in glorious New Mexico), I decided on a compromise with Mother Nature. We'd celebrate half birthdays and she could have free reign do whatever she wants on the real day! Ev's half birthday just happens to fall on August 1st, so Alex took the day off and we made our way up to The Bronx Zoo. We're zoo people. We're the zoo-iest people you'll ever meet, I think. Every road trip we take, we try to fit a zoo in there somewhere, but man is The Bronx Zoo way up there. We had plans to be real New Yorkers and ride the subway all the way up there, but they don't open until 10, which means we'd be headed back past nap time and if there is one thing we've learned about city living with a kid is never be on the subway past nap time. You can be anywhere else, but if you're still sitting on a bench in a sub way car all hell is going to break loose. It's a law of the NYC universe, I tell ya.
So we drove across the Brooklyn Bridge and up along the edge of Manhattan with views of the East River on our right and the city on our left and thanked our lucky stars we kept our car because it has to be the loveliest drive we'll ever take. There's just something about crossing the Brooklyn Bridge, seeing the Freedom Tower just hanging out up there above the rest of the crowd, and spotting glimpses of the Empire State Building on a drive to somewhere as normal as the zoo that make you want to scream, "IS THIS REAL LIFE?!'
Anyway, the Bronx Zoo is the world's largest metropolitan zoo, so we had to take it seriously and how do you take a zoo trip seriously? By buying t-shirts, of course! We agreed that wearing them while we still live in the city is off limits, but once we leave it's free game - touristy zoo shirts all around! They had no pleasing designs on t-shirts for two year olds, so we bought Ev an extra small and said it'll be a sleep shirt. I cringed as I put it on her. I can't believe she's old enough to buy souvenir shirts for. My dad bought me at least five souvenir shirts a year as a kid, I swear, and it was so endearing in a dorky dad way that I swore I'd have to do the same for my kids.
I can't even stand how nerdy cute she looks in these sunglasses. I could eat her.
It seems that her favorite part of the zoo was actually the part without any real animals. She loved the dinosaurs!
I hope you all had a lovely weekend. If you blogged about it, feel free to leave a link.
Wow that zoo looks awesome. It's close to me so I'll have to check it out. I'm happy that you didn't get hurt by the fire above you guys! That's so crazy how casual that fireman was haha
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