Fair Omission

Should probably just skip posting about this since it happened over a week ago, but I like to post so I remember things, not really so other people read it and enjoy it. About a week and a half ago I met up with some of my family and took the kids to the Washington County Fair. I always went growing up but I think I only have gone once in the past 10 years. Apparently I didn't miss anything. It was exactly the same as it used to be.

The kids mostly enjoyed the place. Neither of them had really napped that day so I knew it was just a matter of time until they were just done. They liked looking at most of the animals. Will wasn't too fond of the chickens but I really wasn't either. They were loud. One of the cow owners let us pet a cow. Marcus was loving that. Will was all about it until he came within about a foot of the cow and then changed his mind. We got to pet a bunch of horse's noses. Marcus rode on my shoulders so he could see over the sides of the horse stalls and my sister and brother-in-law took turns holding Will up so he could see too. The evening ended with a stop at the petting zoo. My nephew took Will by the hand to go check out the animals and Marcus insisted that he had to go with me. I got Marcus a little baby bottle of milk to feed the animals with. He thought that was hilarious, particularly the part where the one little goat was standing up on me trying to get to the bottle. My nephew had a cup of food so when he and Will walked into the petting zoo area, all these goats came running over. That was just a little too much for Will. He enjoyed the rest of the petting zoo from the safety of my arms, traumatized by the goats. Marcus soon became traumatized by the baby goats as well. In his attempt to pet the softest baby llama in the world, he lost his footing, fell over, and looked up from ground level to see nothing but llamas and goats surrounding him. Both kids made it clear the night was over. I changed them into their pj's in the parking lot, strapped them into their car seats, and they were asleep before we hit a paved road.

Last Wednesday my mom was visiting for the day and we headed to the Pittsburgh Zoo. After reading another blog I enjoy, I was fearful of the amount of other families that would decide to try to hit up the zoo that day for one last outing before school started. Probably the busiest day I had ever been to the zoo but it wasn't overwhelming. It ended up being a great day at the zoo despite all the completely rude people. I really hate people. Individuals are okay, but people in general are just no good. I can't even remember how many people I heard tell their children to just push their way to the front so they could see. Are these the values that people are teaching their children? Looks like I will be hating people for generations to come. I get that kids will be kids and sometimes they just don't have that thinking thing down yet, but adults should just know better. I would be standing there with my big double stroller and my two kids strapped in, telling my kids who were really impatient to see what was going on that we needed to wait our turn. Someone would be done viewing in front of us, move out of the way, and it was almost always an adult who would push his or her way right in front of my children. What is wrong with people?? Even when we were trying to leave the parking lot it didn't end. There was a big long line of cars and this woman was inching her little minivan up on the bumper of the car in front of her so I couldn't merge. Seriously, did she think she was going to get out of there any faster by being rude? Unfortunately for her, two can play at that game and I tend to be a pretty good player. I squeezed myself in front of her and when it came time for us to merge with another line of cars, I let three cars out in front of me instead of only one just so she would get home 2 minutes later than she otherwise would have.

Anyway, really was a great day at the zoo. We got to see the baby tiger. After telling my kids to be patient for a few minutes and waiting for lots of rude people to not be patient and step in front of my kids, we did get to see the little baby elephants.

We took our own lunch and my mom spotted this little bench in the shade totally out of the way so we ate there. It was so much nicer than trying to fight for a table with everyone else.

Marcus fell asleep in the aquarium for 15 minutes.

When we got out of the aquarium we could see one of the polar bears was in the water. I wasn't about to go rushing into the tunnel to get an underwater view. Once again, patience paid off. When we got down to the tunnel under the polar bear tank, the bear was still in the water above us. It was really the coolest thing I had ever experienced at the zoo. The bear was playing with some bucket-like thing and would wrestle it and then drop it into the water and go swimming down to it.


Then the bear swam over so he was standing on top of the glass tunnel we were in with his head sticking out of the water above.

He did this little sidestep thing and was right over my head!


All of a sudden there was this huge splash above us and all these bubbles. The second bear had just jumped right into the water. The two bears started play fighting.

I didn't get too many good pictures of the bears playing though because I quickly switched my camera to video mode instead. Sorry, too lazy to upload the video and post it here since it was so long.

We stopped for some Dippin' Dots after all that excitement. The trip was far from over though. We did some sliding in the kid's area and even got to pet a deer. I told the kids at the beginning of the zoo trip that we were going to try to catch a train ride on the way out. Marcus wasn't about to forget and as we were headed in the direction of the exit Marcus started shouting out, "Choo choo!!" This of course set Will off so he too was yelling, "Choo choo!!" Off for a little choo choo ride we went. Really a great trip. Warm but overly hot, and lots of action!