Indianapolis Zoo

My roommate from college was randomly in Indianapolis for a conference, so Daniel and I decided (almost spontaneously, which is strange for us!) to load up and head to the Indianapolis Zoo for a day and then see Ally for a few hours. We had BLOWN our gas budget on the trip to South Carolina, and completely shattered the rest of the budget on the car repairs from South Carolina, but we went anyways. We love our budget and saving money, but we are trying to prioritize people and memories over numbers!

We went to the zoo last year, but we didn't take Sawyer. This year, he was actually old enough to enjoy it and be interested for awhile. The Indianapolis Zoo is the perfect size. It's not so small that you don't feel like you're getting what you paid for, but it's not so big that you can't get through all of it before an *almost* two year old gets bored and cranky. We saw everything, and it took us about 2.5 hours to get through it all. They also have a splash pad and some little rides (neither of which we attempted) that look fun for the future.

Such Handsome Boys!

 Ok. So I hate when people upload every single picture from their zoo trips. I mean, we have all been to zoos and seen monkeys before. I understand fully that seeing things through your kids' eyes makes them new and exciting again, but your 102 pictures of the various animals are not exciting to the average person- even grandparents- unless your kid is in them. All that to say- the only animals I took pictures of were the elephants because they are my absolute fave. And I was trying to get the picture of the baby elephant with his mama, but he kept hiding behind her. If you'll notice, the elephant mama on the right has more feet than she is supposed to. :) It made me feel all motherly and teary-eyed thinking about the awesome gift of being a mama, and at the same time I felt so sorry for her having to be pregnant for so much longer than me. Ha.

 Daniel and I always forget to take pictures together, so we finally remembered one. :)

The Botanical Gardens are included in your admissions price, so we went to those, but we stayed less than an entire minute. Rare plants + cranky baby = disaster.  Sawyer was OUT about two seconds into the car trip.

 Then, I got to spend a couple hours with this amazing girl. Love her and miss her so much! I would totally let her and Jason live with us so that we could be roommates for life, but apparently the boys aren't completely up for that plan. :)