isabelle of the ball: Welcome to the Jungle

As part of Isabelle's cavalcade of birthday celebrations, we thought it would fun to partake in an activity that both kids would completely love, and why not have some other little friends join us? Isabelle, Oliver, Peter, Carys and Matthew (and their parents and a couple of grandparents!) all met up for a fun afternoon at the Toronto Zoo! We have some experiences at zoo-like establishments like the Biodome and have seen other animals at Hatfield Farms, but this was taking us to a whole new level. All the kids were super excited to not only see some amazing animals like elephants, hippos, zebras and giraffes, but to get to do it together in such a big group allowed us to share the experience. They got the chance to ride fake animals on a carousel, followed by a real-life camel ride (where we had to fib and tell them Oliver was 3 to get him past the tight security!). From there, we moved on to the touch pool with stingrays and even got to see some tiny sharks! Finally we hit the African sector, where Oliver was at his happiest, seeing giant elephants and even some sleeping tigers. He had his best roar ready to try and wake them up. After a great lunch courtesy of Auntie (thanks, Jess!), we visited the penguin/pelican tank (this isn't a joke for the Haligonians, they really did have them in the same place) and our last stop was to see what the polar bears were up to. We were very lucky here, we got to see them really close as they walked past several times on the way to and from their den. We even saw one go for a swim in the water! What an awesome place to spend the day, especially with people we love so dearly. These cousins are getting such great opportunities to spend time together this summer. We look forward to future visits and getting to know the newest cousin Ben! We plan to make the zoo an annual thing now, how could we not after these kids had such a blast only seeing half of it!?

So excited to take this for a whirl