It Was a "G'Day, Mate!"

We took the girls on their first official "field trip" this week to Kentucky Down Under, an Australian-themed hands-on zoo park. While we've experienced far above-average, sweltering heat the past couple of weeks, Wednesday was a much cooler day. The park was nicely shaded in most areas, as well, so it was a great day to be outside.

The girls have been pretty obsessed with animals the past few months, so I expected they would have a blast with all the new sights and sounds.

Amidst lots of giggles, the girls squealed with delight at the sight of each animal exhibit. They were signing like crazy and yelling the names (or at least the first syllables of the names) of the several of the different animals. I thought it was kinda funny that they got just as excited over seeing a dog (used in the sheep herding exhibit) as they did over getting up close and personal with a couple of kangaroos.

Baby B, signing "bird", and saying "burh!" (or something like that)...

Baby A, leaning in for a closer look...

Baby A, signing "hat"(she got excited over that, too!)...

Baby B, pointing out the sheep to a pointing Mommy...

The hands-on exhibit of kangaroos and emus (not pictured) was our favorite part of the day. We didn't let the girls pet the animals, but we held them and knelt down a foot or so away. They were so excited!

(This is a picture of a random kid petting a red kangaroo. It dawned on me during the day that one of the challenges of having young twins - who each require hands-on attention themselves - is that you don't have a "free" parent to take pictures...)

On the way out of the zoo, we paused to check out the Kookaburra one more time. We sang the "Kookaburra" song ("Kookaburra sits on the old gum tree / merry, merry king of the bush is he..."). Yeah, we got some looks, but the girls were jamming in their stroller the whole way back to the car.

We had such a fun afternoon. This is definitely the first of many, many field trips to come.