Audubon Zoo!

Does anyone know why the flamingoes are always by the entrance? Whatever the reason, Carly loves them!

These two kept fighting - she thought it was really funny.
And this elephant kept backing up. Scary!
White tigers...I promise there aren't five million animal photos.
Peeking
Posing - trying to get her fingers to look just right.
Dancing like an alligator and the entrance to the children's zoo!
Carly was very brave!
This poor goat. All he wanted to do was get inside the no-kids-allowed pen, but the little boy in front of him was blocking the door!
Carly went straight to work!
See the patch of dirt? He tried to take Carly's shovel, so she dumped it on him.

So funny! The wind kept blowing her skirt up and she was trying to pat it down!
She made it to the top of this little mountain and she was saying "Look at me! Look at me!"
We had to wait a LONG time for the train - and then had to fight off some rude pushy people who didn't wait and tried to get in front of us, gr! - and Carly wanted to sit down. She chose to sit on the parking brake instead of actually in the stroller. She'll sit pretty much ANYWHERE except in the stroller if given the choice. Sometimes even if she's not given the choice. =)
So happy to be on the White Thomas The Train!
Yum

This zoo is SO beautiful. I'm not going to post all the boring tree photos here, but it really is lovely. This is the sea lion exhibit.
Carly, climbing up one of the oldest trees in the park. It's over 100 years old.
Then the splashy place! It was really cool! It had two waterfalls you could climb in, a wading pool and that hill off to the side great for running superfast down! Soooo fun.
Her favorite thing was when the big boys would run through the wading pool and she would get splashed.
She'd laugh so hard! Of course, the shutter on my camera is a bit too slow for me to actually catch the grin, but she LOVED it.

Any other kid, this photo would mean, "Hey, she splashed me!"

But we're talking about Carly. She was trying to play the same game the big kids were playing where they'd splash each other, but they weren't paying attention. So...it was, "Hey! He NO SPASH ME TOO!" Funny girl!
Then my little adventurer decided that she would try to climb up the waterfall without me.
I followed her - and she got almost all the way up to the top before she realized I was there! She definitely has some of Mommy's love of climbing on rocks. Our little mountain goat. =)
Heheheh...okay....yes, this is Carly in her underwear. She was just so funny dripping wet and fussing about not wanting to leave the splashy place. That's the one problem with really fun stuff - it's just SO HARD to leave when you're little! So I bribed her with some goldfish and we were off to see the other exhibits.
Quick wardrobe change and hey right around the corner there is a giant rope climby thing. Way fun.

Ooh - scary albino alligator. While we were standing there, he opened his eyes. Creepy!
Another rope climby thing in the Louisiana swamp section.
We were coming right up agains the four-hour rule when Carly started to freak out and told me she needed a break. She sat right in front of that tree for a good five minutes taking deep breaths. I was hoping that would help keep away the inevitible tantrum...but no...it was a nice try, though!
Bye, Zoo