Swimming Lessons and the Zoo

This Monday was Ares' first swimming lessons at the YMCA. Since he won't turning 6 until the last day of swimming lessons I was able to put him in the preschool swim. I wanted to do this because the older swim lessons would start off in the deeper water (the lap pool), and I need him to know how to swim in the shallow end first. So far his swimming lessons have been great! He even gets to swim in the deep end at the end of the class (they had floaties attached to their backs. I don't know what they were called, but they were not life jackets).

After the pool we went home for lunch, and then met my Aunt Amy and my cousin Emma at the Sedgwick County Zoo. It was the first time the girls had been to the zoo since they were little babies so this was going to be a new experience for them! First up was the petting zoo where all the kiddos were able to feed the sheep.

If you notice Ceri and Brigid didn't make these pictures. I could not get a good picture of them! Ceri did NOT like feeding the sheep, all she did was scream. Brigid was too tired to care all around so she just sat there.

 

Next we saw some penguins, then we went to the reptile house, and it was my favorite because it is air conditioned. We got to see the tortoises outside before we went into the building though.

 

Next was the rainforest exhibit, and as you can guess it would be in the rainforest it was very humid. They had changed stuff around since the last time I was there so it was interesting to see. The waterfall was always my favorite part, and one of Ares' too!

 

Since I usually skip the North American section we went there. It was great because I was able to see two things I didn't know we had at the zoo! The first thing that was new to me were the otters. I loved watching them! Watching them swim was like watching an underwater ballet.

 

The second thing that was new to me were the wolves. I seriously never knew we had wolves here! It was awesome. :)

 

Since it was so hot we decided to cut our day at the zoo short. Before we could leave though we had to see the elephants, which are Ares' favorite animal. I'm not exactly sure why the elephants were inside for the afternoon since they are used to very hot conditions, but we had to go inside to see them. Sadly this made it look like we were visiting inmates though with all those bars! Poor elephants :(

 

Afterwards we went home, and enjoyed the comforts of home (by that I mean A.C.) Then it was off to my Grandparent's house for our family carnival. I am going to post this at the end of the week though with for all the things we did with the letter "C" this week. With swimming lessons, the zoo, and our family carnival, it was an exhausting day! This is definitely what I call summer :)