Lamb E Umptum

Our trip to the St. Louis Zoo

Steve and I went to St. Louis Friday afternoon to attend an evening temple session. We stayed with Emily and Joe and went again to the 7:30 Saturday morning session. It was really nice to spend so much time in the temple but the real "work" of the weekend was taking Noah and the three Egan kids to the St. Louis Zoo after our session so Joe and Bishop and Annie Egan could attend. We had Elle (age 4), Noah (age 3), Ike (age 2), and Abe (age 4 months) and OH MY did we have an adventure. First of all, because it was a nice day, I was just positive that all the near-by parking was already taken so we parked the Egan's vehicle waaaaaaaay far from the entrance. Thankfully, the Egans had a double stroller (which wouldn't turn on a baseball diamond much less a dime) to help with carting everyone. BUT, before we could even start walking to the zoo entrance, we had to figure out how to get the baby seat out. Only, we forgot that nowadays, baby carriers pop in and out of the car-seat base and so we spent a good ten minutes trying to unbuckle the entire apparatus with endless frustration. Finally, my brain decided to cough up the memory that we only have to detach the carrier – and then we spent another ten minutes trying to figure out how to do THAT! Arg! So, we finally got into the zoo and, with two hours to kill, one would think we would be able to cover quite a bit of territory. Wrong! We saw the bears – which we always see since their habitat is right at the entrance. Steve took the walking kids to see the penguins and then Abe was hungry so we had a snack. Then, while Steve kept Abe, I took the others on the train around the park (you should have seen Noah jump up and down wildly as the train pulled into our station). We started to go see the elephants when we got the call that parents were on their way to pick up. Yea, that is all we did. And, keeping track of Noah and Ike was a full-time job. I did that while Steve tried to steer the un-maneuverable stroller away from curbs and fences. Thankfully, there were no tears, no meltdowns, no accidents, no kidnappings. And I got some cute pictures……