I love love love taking my kids to Zoo Atlanta. It’s my childhood and I love that they experience a place I grew up loving. Out of all of my kids, Tess loves animals the most so I was especially bummed that we weren’t able to make a trip to Zoo Atlanta over the summer.
MAJOR sidenote but Atlanta area friends…would anyone want to go with me and my kids to the Zoo and Aquarium sometime decently soon? And maybe let us crash with you too? I wanna make the trip but don’t feel comfortable going to either place completely alone (I get creeped out easily and hello downtown Atlanta)! Maybe we can plan some sort of meet up or something?
Anyways. So I was bummed (and it’s a top priority for 2017 for me to make it happen!) and I talked to Zach about it. He isn’t a fan of zoos (hence why he’s never been with us haha) but he did agree to devote a day for Tess at Wild Adventures. There are a TON of animals at Wild Adventures that we’ve never taken the time to really look at. So I wanted to have a day revolved around seeing every animal they had to offer. To let it be focused on Tess and what she’d enjoy most. We even skipped naps! Living wild 😉
We talked to the big kids about this leading up to the day. I knew Kye would want to ride the big rides and Britt would want to do her own things too. They both understood that the purpose was for animals, but that we’d make sure they got to do special things they enjoyed as well!
The advantage of Wild Adventures is that it’s SO casual. We didn’t have an agenda or a plan. We just took our time and roamed around and checked everything out! It was SO MUCH FUN.
I will go ahead and give a little advance warning but I will be referencing this day when I talk about our Disney trip. This day with Tess was better than Disney with her. Yes, I just said that. But Tess was sick at Disney. And she didn’t respond super well to the rush rush of things. She wanted to walk. She wanted to be right there with the big kids. And it’s just not possible to let a two year old walk all over Disney parks! Our Wild Adventures day allowed her to be at her own pace and really soak it all up. She takes awhile to really want to jump into situations and this day allowed her that time. Don’t get me wrong, Disney was AMAZING. It just took us a bit to figure out the way TESS would best enjoy the parks (and we did figure it out by the end of the trip which makes me even MORE pumped for our next Disney visit with her!).
Checking out the giraffes!
Tess talked and talked about this “Baby Lion” that night when we got home!
These two are too cool to ride with Mom and Dad
Britt was SO PUMPED to ride the hopper! I thought it was her first time but actually went back and saw that she’s done it before haha I ADORE Britt’s reactions! Her joy and excitement just show all over her face, and Kye was loving it too 🙂
Tess’s favorite area is the little monkey playground. You can watch super adorable monkeys AND play on a slide. It’s on the way to the water park so we’d stop there a good bit over summer!
The guys got to ride a ride while the girls were content playing with monkeys 😉
Zach cannot STAND birds. But I insisted on doing the bird area and even buying food haha Basically I tortured my husband in the name of seeing our youngest daughter have fun. But the kids and I had walked through there earlier in the year and I hated that he hadn’t gotten to see how much Tess LOVED it! When you have a more serious, mild child like Tess it’s exciting to see that rare moment of emotion out of them 😉
She was in Heaven!
Can you tell she had THE best day?!?!
You know what Britt’s favorite was!
The big kids are obsessed with riding the Dizzy Dragons solo…which gave us a chance to ride the carousel with just Tess!
Casey, Jordan and Carter met us out there for some of the Halloween festivities!
Casey bought us matching kimonos so Duh we had to be twins!
Spooooky House
The funniest thing of the Halloween themed events was the “dance party” area. Y’all. It was so bad it was amazing. This random guy, who we couldn’t decide if he worked there or not, was beat boxing? It was SO funny! Of course it became an “open mic” party b/c Casey had to have a try!
Tess did so awesome all day but when we split up for the boys to ride a rollercoaster she got upset that she didn’t get to drive the jeep ride. Sadly it meant she just couldn’t ride! It was the only hiccup of the day which is pretty awesome!
My kids are so content to even just play on this huge playground they have! I love that Tess does her own thing and will not even mind if she’s alone doing it!
An AMAZING family day! It was a great lesson that we can focus on ONE child as a family and still ALL have a blast! All of us enjoyed the animals and everyone got to ride things they wanted to as well!
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