The Good Zoo at Oglebay

Wheeling has so many great things for kids! On Saturday morning, we met Jason, Sarah, Campbell, and Will Koegler and Kristin, Claire, and Max Seibert at Oglebay's Good Zoo.

Claire will be 4 in August, Campbell is nearly a month older than Elizabeth (the two of them are 3), Max is 2, and Will is 19 months. Reid was quite ecstatic that Elizabeth was the tallest in the bunch!

I find it much easier to keep up with just Elizabeth when I take her out shopping or the like than to help 2 other moms keep track of 5 kids in all. Plus Max is fast and has no issues with running away from a poor pregnant Kristin. (Kristin's husband, Justin, was working, so that must have been additionally stressful for her!)

The Good Zoo is really nifty! We started out with the kids playing in the room with the nasty looking mole rats. Actually, we kind of sped past the meerkats as they are pretty stinky before getting to the room with the turtles, mole rats, etc. Elizabeth and Claire especially enjoyed playing veterinarian to the stuffed animals! Too cute!!!

Somewhat surprisingly, Elizabeth was excited about the train ride. (This was the beginning of the end of the fun at the Boo at the Zoo in October. People were dressed in costumes and jumped out of the woods in a couple of places during the Boo at the Zoo...E spent the rest of the time with her eyes closed!) It was a bit chilly for my liking, but the kids all had fun on the train ride. Toot-Toooooot!

We spent quite a bit of time at the playground. I think the kids would have been happy if that is all that we would have done for the day. Then we were off to the lorikeet cage, which was pretty nifty. Only a few seconds after we stepped into the cage both Reid and Sarah had attracted a few of the lorikeets. Fortunately none of the birds landed on the kids, although Campbell did have one on his arm for a brief bit.

Then it was off to the kangaroo enclosure. There were at least 5 kangaroos in the enclosure, and you can get surprisingly close to the animals. There are a few signs that tell the people to stay on the sidewalks. I can only assume that the roos stay in the grass area...but Will, more than any of the other kids, would throw that rope over his head and off he'd go to chase after the kangaroos. Pretty funny!

Then we had lunch. The Seiberts departed for home. The Amoses and Koeglers took the kids to the model train exhibit. Campbell and E would run along side of some of the trains, which was pretty cute. The Koeglers went home and Reid and I took Elizabeth back into the room where she could doctor the puppy a bit to help it feel better. She also needed to show the turtle, who was eating his "salad" that she was wearing a shirt with a turtle on it before we went home.

We had a great time...and Elizabeth is ready to go back to the zoo with her friends!