We finally made it! But don't think that we didn't have our road blocks, because we definitely did! As most of you know, Garrett got Hand Foot Mouth disease last month...the same day we were supposed to go to Binder Park Zoo! This time, we were actually in the car, about a half hour away from the zoo, when fate stepped in once more. Garrett started getting whiny. I asked what he wanted... Juice?...Snack?... Both times he said no. EB and I figured that he was getting hot because the sun was on him. So we pulled off the highway and put the sun roller shade on his window. Not ten minutes later, he started puking. After pulling off again and stopping at a Burger King to clean him up, we then missed the detour to the highway we needed because of all the construction. After driving another 20 minutes to get in the right direction, we stopped at Meijer to get new clothes for him, as well as Lysol, towels, and Germ-X. We figured that he was car sick, since he never puked again. By the time this picture was taken, EB and I were exhausted! And this was before we even entered the zoo!
The first thing we wanted to see was Wild Africa. So we took the tram to Africa and headed right to the restaurant for lunch. If Garrett could keep lunch down, then the rest of the zoo was worth seeing. Well, not only did he keep everything down, he ate everything put in front of him! EB brought a bag of freeze dried fruit and between Garrett and Carolyn, they ate the whole bag! Here's Garrett saying "Cheese!" for the camera while eating!
Garrett's first up close look at a "raff". He tried feeding them, but when their tongues touched him, he got scared and dropped the cracker.
The next exhibit was the monkeys, or "buttees" as Garrett calls them. Although I was glad that they weren't throwing poop at us or something equally disgusting, I do wish they were doing
something! Most just sat there in the trees, content with being watched.
On our way out of Africa, we stopped at the souvenir shop. Carolyn got a plush giraffe, and I got Garrett the monkey. We saw lots of other moms having their kids pictures taken with this giraffe, so we thought it would be cute, too. Unfortunately, we couldn't get both kids smiling and looking at the same camera at the same time! Close enough.
Long story short, there wasn't enough room for both EB and I to take the same tram back together, so Garrett and I hung out and waited for the next one. He kept biting his monkey's face while screaming and running away, while I was trying to take his picture. He thought it was hilarious.
We stopped and got a cookie, too. It was warm and gooey and Garrett dived right in.
Here are some more animals that I have never seen before:
Giant Tortoises
Snow Leopard 
Cheetah
Another type of monkey
All in all, I'm glad that we finally got to go to the zoo. I made me feel good knowing that I could show Garrett some real animals that at this point we had only seen in pictures.
