We started our third day of vacation off a little bit slower. We didn’t get to bed until 11pm the night before and we had a hotel room to pack up. After we all got ready, ate a light breakfast, and packed our belongings in our car, we headed towards the Indianapolis Zoo.
The zoo was kind of an unknown in our schedule. Generally the boys aren’t too interested in the animals when we’ve gone to the Buffalo Zoo and the entire trip turns into a fight. Our trip to the Indianapolis Zoo had the added features of an extremely late bedtime the night before and 9,000 degree temperatures. (Yay! Heatwave!)
The first thing we did upon entering was to rent a stroller. We didn’t bring a stroller from home because the boys really don’t need one but I figured the heat would wipe them out. In addition, Matthew had hurt his big toe the night before while running barefoot to the hotel pool. He tripped and pretty much ripped the skin off his big toe. Needless to say, it hurt to put shoes on his feet. We put him in flip flops but we knew he couldn’t do a lot of walking with the injury and those shoes.
Please note that Matthew is pushing Ian in the stroller. Ian wanted to sit in the stroller within about 10 seconds of being at the zoo. This is particularly funny to me because Mike is very anti-stroller for our trip to Walt Disney World in November. He thinks Ian won’t need one. Silly man. LOL
Our first stop of the day was to see the tiger exhibit.
We wandered a bit and found some monkeys….
At that point, we pretty much immediately stumbled upon the area of the zoo with the playground and the splash pad. There was no way to avoid either and we knew the second we walked past them that the boys wouldn’t want to see anymore animals. Since we still had a full zoo visit ahead of us and we didn’t bring a change of clothes for the boys into the zoo, we decided to go to the playground and leave the splash pad as the last thing we did before we left for the day. The boys were pretty content at the playground so we stayed there for a while.
After that we got lunch for the boys. We ordered food that they didn’t eat and ended up throwing it all away because Mike and I didn’t want it either. (Please note we had a late lunch the day before and a very light breakfast on this day.)
With the failed attempt at lunch out of the way, we went to the shark tank to touch the sharks.
The boys were absolutely fascinated but would not hold still enough to let the sharks get close. After Mike and the boys walked off, I was able to touch one. It was really cool!
Our next stop was to the theater for the dolphin show. At this point we started losing Matthew. He was absolutely exhausted and couldn’t decide if he wanted to see the show or not. He was alternating between excitement and hysterical fit.
Terrible picture of the theater:
Shortly before the show started, Mike had to leave the theater with Matthew. They went back to the playground while Ian and I watched the dolphins perform. It was an awesome show. I was really disappointed that Mike and Matthew had to miss it.
After the show, it was pretty clear we needed to leave soon. Ian asked to go to the splash pad (for the millionth time) so we headed in that direction.
I seriously think the boys could have spent the entire zoo trip at the splash pad. We were there for a while – probably close to an hour.
You can see Matthew standing behind Ian’s right shoulder in this picture:
I love that Matthew has a Buddha-belly but you can still see his ribs. LOL
Do you see my timid son standing under the bucket, waiting to get drenched?!?!?!
Unfortunately, the fun had to end. Of course, my extremely overtired, hot and hungry children responded pleasantly to being told it was time to go. 😉
We went out to the parking lot and changed the boys into dry clothes while standing between cars. We do it ghetto-style in the Samulski family! LOL
Once they had dry shorts on, we buckled them into their seats and headed towards Muncie. As I mentioned before, we were on our way to Muncie when Matthew yelled “DADDY!!! I NEED TO GO PEE PEE!!!!” Mike got off the highway right away but we were at an exit where they were building a business park. There wasn’t anywhere we could take Matthew so we pulled the potty chair out of the car and let him go in the road on a dead end.
Like I said before, we do it ghetto-style in our family. Just keepin’ real, my friends! 🙂
About 10 minutes after the roadside potty break, I looked back and found this:
We got to Muncie pretty quickly and went to visit my grandparents. After a short visit, we went to dinner at a local pizza place that we looooove.
Remember how we had hardly eaten since lunch the day before? Well, we made up for it at dinner. I think Mike and I polished off a large pizza in about 32 seconds and Ian ate both his AND Matthew’s spaghetti dinners. I’m not really sure what Matthew ate. LOL
After dinner we went to our hotel to check in. Then it was off to a classic car show with Aunt Sherri and Uncle Bill!
It was a good but exhausting day. 🙂