Good Morning Atlanta!!!!
We have had a very great first day here, and we are excited to see, do, and experience more!
We all slept great last night, and Emery was a champion. New place, no worries. He slept for his usualy 12 hours (yes, he is amazing! We are so thankful!).
He did wake up VERY Hungry though, so his bottle came to him rather quickly. Sometimes he gets up with slow groggy sounds, then falls back asleep, and does that a few times before really wanting to be taken out of his crib. But this morning, he wanted OUT! He made it clear. He was hungry and he wanted to be awake! We were not complaint though. We will take some demanding in the morning. He slept 12 hours. The boy is hungry..get him his bottle!
After the bottle, things went a little down hill. We wanted to get to the zoo before 10am, because then we got discounted tickets (we are vacationing on a budget here!). So Beka was all business trying to get packed up and out the door, and Michael was in vacation mode, as he should be. But these two functions do not do well when trying to work in the same realm of time, communication, and expectation. It was a rough morning.
Once we were finally out the door and to the car, Michael and Beka had cooled off and vowed to not make it a thing, and to enjoy the rest of the day, free of arguing.
Michael apologized with Beka's favorite hot tea. Yummy.
The first stop on today's agenda....the Atlanta zoo!!! We love our nashville zoo, and we always try and see zoos when we travel, but we have never been to the ATL zoo, so we were all VERY excited!
This is Emery's "zoo dance". It can morph into a "dinner", "swimming", "church" ect. dance. We just repeat what we want him to get excited about, and he dances.
We got to the zoo earlier than we had planned, and we saw a cute coffee shop across the street, so we made a pit stop.
The zoo is in a cute part of ATL. The houses are all different and really fun to see.
The cute coffee shop we were going to visit was called Grant Park coffeehouse. It had a great seating area up front, and all the artwork was very retro and cool.
They had some pretty fun things. Michael got a fruit infused red bull, and Beka got an almond milk Nutella mocha.... they both were SO great.
Emery got a sample of some coffee cake, and he was a happy boy to eat it outside on the patio.
We were all VERY happy with this cute find! We may have to visit again on our trip. It was that good!
Emery really wanted some of Micahel's red bull. No, we did not give him any.
Now that we are caffeinated, we are ready to hit the zoo!
We had to put Emery back in the car seat so we could park, and he was not happy. We had gotten him so excited with his zoo dance that the last thing he wanted was to be restrained again! UGH!
He got over it quickly, as is his nature (again, we are so thankful!), and off we went in the stroller!
It helped that Beka let him hold her Nashville zoo pass (we got a discount for having that too!) and her ID. He likes having a job.
Here we go!
The first thing you saw (and smelled) as you entered were the flamingos! This reminded us of our San Diego zoo.
They had a pretty great play place, but not as good as our Nashville zoo. We thought about letting Em go crazy on it, but we decided to wait and use it as a way to get rid of his energy if he becomes antsy. We ended up not needed that option, but it was good to know it was there.
We walked and walked seeing lots of different animals and exhibits. This one caught our attention. We thought it odd that it was sponsored by Orkin, which kills animals for a profession....just funny.
There was a place where you could test your speed. Michael had to do it.
Ready...GO!
He was a tameran! We later found out it was a monkey typed thing. We were all very proud of his athletic success. After that feat of showmanship, we decided to see more animals.
Emery was having a great time making noises and waving at the animals.
Then...it was time. We arrived.
The petting zoo.
Emery wanted to jump and snuggle on all the animals! He had no fear, just LOVE LOVE LOVE to give.
He kept giving the animals "loveies".
There was so much love radiating off of sweet Emery, the sheep started giving "loveies" to each other!
And after all that love, we washed our hands REALLY well.
Now we are off to see the Pandas!
We liked the pandas. Let's see more animals!
Emery thought the turtles were cool.
Do you see what we see?
Then we went into the reptile house, and played our usual reptile-house-game. Find the animal. We go through each station, and we don't move on until we find the little critter inside. We found all of them here!
Outside of the reptile house, Emery made a friend.
He thought this lizard was pretty hilarious!
Before we left, he wanted to say bye to his friend...
With a kiss on the lips.
Then we saw some Neked mole rats!
Emery came out of the naked mole rat tunnel.
He really liked the tunnel. He just sat in there. He did not want to come out all the way! We eventually had to grab him out of it because a line was forming be hid him.
Then it was time for the gorillas! They were not very easy to see, but there were some cute babies way back there.
And what do you know...Emery made a friend again!
He didn't want to say goodbye.
He gave his friend lots of lovies before they went their separate ways.
Then it was off to the meerkats! They are REALLY cute at this zoo.
Especially this one. Man, this meerkat was the cutest we had ever seen!
All the other meerkats were super lazy!
Then, a rhino.
And there was a giraffe way off in the distance.
Now it was time for Michael Oakley's favorite...the elephants!
The elephants were the end of the animals. The zoo made one big loop, and we ended up right where we came in. It was a GREAT day. We loved the zoo. Well done Atlanta!
Emery was SO tired when we put him in the car! Luckily he had his snuggle buddies to keep him company.
Thanks for coming to the zoo with us! If you are ever in the ATL, we recommend! And DEF go to the coffee shop across the street. Both were wonderful. It was a great start of our Atlanta day two.
Stay tuned for more!
Love
Team Oakley
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