The One With The Hungry Giraffe

Michael had a business trip to Battle Creek, MI (home of Kellogg world headquarters) this week.

The girlies and I took the opportunity to tag along, and got to visit the Binder Park Zoo while we were there.

It was very, very cool. We are no stranger to zoos, but this one really blew me away. There were random birds walking around on the paths (one with her chicks ~ so cute!)

an awesome petting zoo

Charlotte wasn't so sure about the pygmy goats, so she hung back with me

Maya, on the other hand, was in LOVE. She was even talking to the goats.

and an Africa exhibit where people could feed giraffes from one of the overlooks.

Also, of all the zoos that we've been to, this one easily had the most "natural" habitats for the animals, where they had plenty of room to roam, and they participate in species preservation programs that maintain breeding pairs and release the babies into the wild (once they are old enough, obviously! :)).

They had random "scenes" set up that made it look like explorers had set up camp to observe the animals,

and all of the signs that told about the animals were written as field notes on sketch pads and clipboards.

All in all, probably the best zoo we've been to. And believe me, the fact that it is in Michigan makes that hard for me to admit!

The rest of the time we were there, we mostly just hung out at and around the hotel. They had a pool,

a nice area outside where the girlies could walk/run around,

and a nice grassy area where we could lay down!

We had a great week :D It's nice to be back in the Buckeye state, but we had a fun visit :)

(You may have noticed this "backpack" in a lot of the pictures. With few exceptions, Maya has carried it around since Monday. She has it on right now, but is carrying it diagonally as a messenger bag, and is pretending to be Diego with his "rescue pack")