Lions, and Tigers, and Bears...and a Splash Pad!

On Thursday my mom and I took Eli to the Indianapolis Zoo for the first time.  We had a great day!  We arrived when the zoo opened at 9:00, so thankfully it wasn't too hot while we were there, and it didn't feel too crowded either.  I was so excited to share this experience with Eli, and talked about it a lot to him beforehand.

Pointing to the stingrays.  He was chatting up a storm about them.  : )

 Checking out all the different colored fish with Grammie.

Looking at the sharks!

The sharks are all in this shallow water so you can touch them, but unfortunately none of them came over to us.

Had fun getting a close-up of the walruses and sea lions.  A huge walrus had his face pressed up against the window, and Eli watched for a while as he opened and closed his eye and twitched his whiskers.  So cool for Eli to see!

Penguins are such funny creatures.  I'm sure Eli would have loved to play with them.  : )

This tiger put on quite the show for us!  He kept walking back and forth across this window, nuzzling his head along it as if he wanted his ears rubbed.  Eli was this close to it!  At one point he got a little nervous and started backing away!  (Eli, not the tiger :)  I wish I could have gotten a picture of the tiger's face.  We were the only ones there for a little bit, but once people heard about this tiger's close-ups, they started to crowd in.

We went to the dolphin show, and it was very entertaining!  We were sitting pretty close (but thankfully not close enough to be splashed), so Eli was able to see the dolphins' flips really well.  Sometimes he even clapped for them.  : )

This is a room that is surrounded by glass so you can watch the dolphins swim around.  Eli immediately loved it in there.  

Watching the dolphins above him.  : )

We got to take a ride on the train to go see the plains animals.  We saw a quick view of the elephants, giraffes, rhinos, and antelope.  I'm not sure if Eli could see them, but he definitely loved being on the choo-choo train!

So excited about the big wheels!

Before we left the zoo, we stopped for a little bit to play at their Splash Pad.  I didn't know there was one, so I didn't have a swimsuit or towel for Eli.  He had a BLAST out there!  He always loves anything with water.  Right away this little girl came up to him.  It was so cute watching them together!

He kept trying to drink the water.  : )

Eli's so funny.  He was shivering the whole time while in the water, but that didn't hold him back!  The water would go off and on, and whenever it'd turn off he'd stand there dumbfounded as to where it went.  He'd wait for awhile but would always get impatient and leave right before the water came on again.  : )  Here's a video of him playing:

We had such an enjoyable day at the zoo!  I look forward to when we can go back again!