On Sunday, we managed to squeeze in family time at the Caldwell Zoo in Tyler. We got up early and made it to the zoo about 10:00. It was really nice for about the first 30 minutes or so. There was a nice breeze and the sun wasn't beating down on us too much. But after 30 minutes of pushing the stoller up and down the hilly sidewalks, I was hot and tired! We tried to document Gibson's first zoo trip with lots of pictures. In most of the pictures, Jason & I are trying everything to bribe Gibson to actually look at the camera. You can guess that we didn't receive much cooperation. Oh well!
Gibson was excited to see the zoo. Can't you tell? It looks like he's tasting the air. We had just left a parrot exhibit that he really liked. However, I managed not to get a picture of Gibson with the parrot.
Here we are posing in front of an exhibit (although I don't remember which one and Jason didn't get the animal in the picture).
He was seriously checking out the monkey in this one (i think).
Here we are in front of the penguins. Gibson really liked it when they shook their whole bodies.
Jason got a close-up of the giraffe!
Here we are with the giraffe! As you can tell, Gibson had NO interest in taking pictures of any sort. He was completely focused on seeing the elephants. 
Finally, we found the elephants! Here's Jason & Gibson with the elephants.
And here we are with the elephants!
Jason & Gibson checking out the rhinoceros.
After the rhinos & elephants, we visited the pink flamingos. I just knew Gibson would think that the flamingos were funny. Plus he likes to say the word "pink". He liked them okay until they squawked. After that, it was all over. He wanted nothing to do with them. I tried to get him to sit down on the edge of the exhibit and take a picture with the pink birds. He would have none of that. He ran away as fast as his little legs would take him. 
After the traumatizing few minutes with the flamingos, he hated the rest of the birds. He wanted to be carried through the bird exhibits.
Jason tried to sit him down so he could walk. Yeah....that didn't happen.
We did find a little playground there for him to play on. It had sandboxes (which he would go no where near), tunnels to crawl through (that didn't happen either) and a truck for him to drive (this one he loved).
He's such a good driver!
He's letting Jason in the truck on this one.
Father & son going for a drive :)
After the truck, Gibson was in better spirits. The next thing we came to was the petting zoo. At the circus a few months ago, Gibson pet and fed the goats. He got a big kick out of it. We thought we'd give it a try. This next picture you can see Gibson trying to crawl up Jason to escape from the "killer" goat. He was not a fan of the goat!
He was thrilled to be leaving the goats. However, he always kept an eye on them to make sure they were not coming anywhere near him.
To me, this look said "By no means are you to take me anywhere near another goat!".
After petting the goats, Jason and Gibson washed their hands. This was probably one of Gibson favorite parts of the zoo. You can tell he is really checking out the monkey!
Of course, he wipes his hands on his shirt. Typical boy huh?
After yet another traumatizing event (at the petting zoo), we thought we would end the zoo trip on a high note and go back to the parrot that he liked so much at the beginning. Here is his reaction to the parrot the 2nd time. I guess his experience with the other birds left a bad taste in his mouth for the parrot as well. Oh well, it was worth a try.
On our way out, I wanted to get a family pic of our trip to the zoo. In hindsight, we should have done this at the beginning of the trip. Gibson was ready to go!
Finally, we're in the truck in the air conditioning! Does he look a little tired?
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