Our First Summer Outing

Our first summer outing was going to the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans! We had a great time~although it was "blazing hot!"

Some of the highlights were:

"When we saw the white alligators!" ~ Mattie
"ICEES!!!" ~ Aimee
"The bear chewing up the sippy cup." ~ Andrew
"A hippo, yeah!" ~ Thomas


The zoo was beautiful! What would else would you expect with the name "Audubon"?



This pool and fountain were one of the first things we saw. Thomas was excited to see the hippos surrounding the pool! He keeps talking about the hippos at the zoo. I didn't see any real hippos. Maybe in his imagination, he saw real hippos. They are one of his most favorite animals right now.

Of course Thomas liked the crocs too. I think this exhibit was the family favorite! The white crocodiles, were in an air conditioned area! Hmm, is this why it was a highlight???













Here's Thomas checking out the white crocodile! :)

Here's the gang taking a breather in the White alligator area!











Andrew & Thomas were particularly interested in the "Swamp Monster!"






After awhile, we took a break at the playground. While the kids were playing, Edd and I were talking about how we felt bad about not joining up with his para-legal, Lisa. They had planned to do the zoo together. Edd tried to call her, but all he had was her work cell #.



As we were talking about it, I looked up and across the playground was Lisa holding her grand-daughter Hannah!!! Imagine that!!!

Hannah and Lisa

We ended up spending the rest of our afternoon at the zoo with Lisa and her family. We went and rode the carousel, got icees and then looked at the "monkeys" again. All the furry monkey-like animals are "monkeys" to Hannah. Aimee and Bethany became Hannah's buddies! It was really cute! :) We also were able to see part of a sea lion info demo!

After the zoo, we all went to Riverview Park, which is in between the zoo and the Mississippi River, for a work crawfish boil! It was fun to meet some of the people that Edd works with. It was also fun to eat some crawfish, which are really tasty!!! We were also able to watch some boats/barges on the Mississippi too.

On our way home, we took the scenic route and drove down St Charles Avenue, where there are some really neat houses! Then it was back on the causeway. As we were driving along the causeway, I asked Edd if he'd ever been on the bridge when they'd had the draw bridge up. He hadn't. Andrew looked up from playing on his DS and said, "Are we still on the causeway???" Yup, we were at mile 12 out of 24! A couple of minutes later, in the distance, I could see a red blinking light and there was something big in the distance too! Turns out, we got to experience right then, an open drawbridge! We only had to wait a few minutes for a sailboat to go through before they closed the bridge and we could be on our way.

The open draw bridge on the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway.

What fun adventures!!! :)