Fort Worth Zoo

On Friday Sarah FINALLY had the day off!! Yay!! We were so excited to get to spend the day with her! So of course we had saved experiencing the Fort Worth Zoo with her. Sarah lives 5 minutes or less from the zoo depending on whether or not you hit the red lights. So nice. I wish we lived that close!

We could not wait to go to the zoo, which sounds funny since we go almost weekly to the Atlanta Zoo, but it is a FAVORITE!! I mean you cannot beat being outside, seeing animals and just enjoying the day. I have already mentioned this to our zoo friends, but the Atlanta Zoo does.not.compare to the Fort Worth Zoo. It was BEYOND BEAUTIFUL! I mean there were almost no words to describe how awesome it was. The animal habitats were HUGE. They were so gorgeous and luscious. 

I found out that the Fort Worth Zoo is privately owned (we could not use our Atlanta Zoo membership to get a discount) so maybe that is the reason why the zoo is so amazing? I believe it is ranked in the top 10 most beautiful zoos in the world. 

We started with the Flamingoes. Do all zoos keep their flamingoes near the entrance? They had more than one type of Flamingo, which was neat to see.

I love this picture of these two. Lyla loves her Aunt Sarah so much.

The Gorilla habitat was probably the most amazing. It was huge. It had an out door area and then there was an indoor area you could walk in, but not like the Atlanta Zoo where it is a building/room. This was like you were in the habitat. It looked like you were in a rainforest. It was all rock and had waterfalls and tons of plant life. The other thing I noticed at this zoo was how CLOSE you could actually get to the animals. In Atlanta, sometimes you see the animals, sometimes you don't. Hit or miss. Here, you could see all the animals and be close enough to almost touch them! Loved that!

Lyla checking out one of the huge gorillas who was sitting right by the window.

I mean crazy, right? He is right there, LOOKING at Lyla!!

Silly gorilla!

They had a couple of Rhinos. We walked across this huge bridge that took you through several different animal habitats, so we were above the Rhinos' looking down at them.

The elephants were also fun to see. They had three elephants in their habitat, which was also much prettier than Atlanta. It had a huge pool in it that was much cleaner than the one in the Atl.

We saw some giraffes. 

They also had hippos. Our zoo does not have those, so it was fun to see them. It was a momma and her baby.

There was a white tiger that was VERY interested in all it's spectators. I am so glad there was a thick piece of glass in between us, because I do not think it would have been a good day for us had there not been!

Happy girl! It definitely got hot today! We found a fun place to eat our picnic lunch inside. It had a huge outdoor tank full of fish, turtles and other sea creatures. The indoor place we ate had a whole wall of glass so that we could watch everything swimming around while we ate. And it gave us a chance to cool off!

Every zoo HAS to have a train and of course we have to ride it! Their train is kind of interesting. You pay for a one way ticket to the other side of the zoo and if you want to ride it back, you have to pay for another ticket! The ride was definitely shorter than the Atlanta Zoo train...if you can imagine that! 

Waiting for the train at the station.

So excited to ride!

Sweet girl!

Loves to take a train ride! "All 'board!"

When we reached the other side of the zoo we hopped off and explored what they had to offer. 

It was a really cute area set up to look like "wild west".

Checking out the map to see where we should go first. My little Dora.

So cute!

There was a petting zoo with goats.

An old fashioned wagon that we could get in.

Swamp land! You can see the crocodile. 

Lyla found a croc to ride :)

I know this picture is really washed out, but it is a bald eagle, which I thought was really cool to see. We also found an insect and reptile building that had lots of insects and reptiles found in Texas, including the Horned Frog!

Mountain Lion.

A wolf, which could not sit still.

Taking a moment to stop and dance!

Instead of riding the train back we decided to get our exercise and walk back to the front of the zoo. It turned out to be a quick walk! It was so hot that we decided to go and get an ice cream treat at       Chick Fil A, of course! Then we had to go home and get ready to celebrate my cousin Emily!

That night, we got Emily ready for her upcoming wedding. We had her friends over to Sarah's house and had a fun dinner, gift opening and spend the night. Such an enjoyable day topped of with a fun night!