ShannonAlbert.com - June 2009

On Friday night, we headed to the zoo to camp out for the night with Bob, Nicki and Mia (kids under 3 or 4 aren't allowed so the twins stayed home w/grandparents). The event is called Creature Campout and involves some educational time in addition to the camping.

Parade of us loading our stuff in from our cars and making use of the zoo strollers to help lighten the load...


Setting up our tent. Blake was so excited about the tent setup process and was really helpful. Mia joined in at times too.


Our tents got setup pretty quickly and then a little football throwing to pass the time. Liz, please notice the Virginia Tech shirt that Andy's wearing...he had to turn toward the camera just so you'd see.


Time to walk to the area where we'd be eating our dinner. Passing giraffes on the way...



Papa John's pizza for dinner. I was thinking more typical camping food like something cooked on the grill but we were starving so the pizza tasted good.


Our guides explaining to us what to expect after dinner...


Walking to the amphibian building...


A good student would post lots of details about the animals and what we learned from our guides. However, I am not a good student and don't really like looking at animals in cages or behind glass so I wasn't paying great attention. Blake is just like me in his interests for the most part so he and I would sneak off occasionally where I'd try to keep him quiet.



One of the activities I gave Blake to keep him busy was to get the glow necklaces together and handed out to the rest of the kids. Mia joined in and they had them handed out in no time.


Yea, we get to escape the building and head back outside.


Our next stop was to head to the education building for a craft project.

On our way, passed a mama and her baby ducks...


And some flamingos...


And the ubiquitous peacock that made several appearances...


Once we got to the education building, we were given the supplies to make our "Toad Abode" that we could use at home in our gardens.





After craft time, the kids gathered around to see some animals up close. Blake did what I'd do and declined to touch the snake but Mia has no fear and did.


At this point it was getting dark so when we headed out for our next stop, the flashlights came in handy. We walked to an area next to some water where we were supposed to be listening for frogs but we didn't hear any. The kids all decided that they'd rather go back to the campsite so we headed that way.

There was a fire already started where we could roast marshmallows and Nicki brought supplies to make s'mores so we did that too.


The 3 kids hung out in our tent while Payton told the 6-year-olds scary stories and the adults sat outside the tent and chatted. We noticed all of the other tents were quiet and everybody seemed to be asleep. Eventually we got there too.

We weren't sure how the camping thing would go because our kids are a lot bigger than the last time we camped. It was a fairly tight squeeze especially with Blake who flops and turns and kicks a lot. The wind also kept blowing the sides of the tent in toward Andy and made a lot of noise with things flapping everywhere. I got very little sleep all night and then before I knew it, Andy was telling us we had to get up and said all other tents were already packed and gone. It was only 7 a.m.

Packed up, got some breakfast and walked around briefly before heading out. Stopped by the Farmer's Market for fresh produce, came home and unpacked. Collapsed back into bed by 9 and slept again. We were exhausted.

Overall, we had a pretty good time but since it's pretty expensive and Blake and I aren't into the animals too much, we probably won't do it again. The camping thing in general is something the kids really want to do more so we'll look into that but it will be somewhere cheaper, animal education won't be needed and we'll get to sleep past 7.