Swedish Visitor - Minnesota zoo and Valley Fair

I completely forgot to include this photo!  This was taken one of the first few nights after Jasmin's arrival.  It was our neighbor's birthday, and they always celebrate it in style...this time with giant pizzas and a cookie the same size!  Best part is that was DELICIOUS too!

One one of the days that I had to work, Joacim took the girls to the Minnesota Zoo (these are all photos he took ;)

One of the fun things we had planned was a trip to Valley Fair.  It was a pretty warm day (we even ended up going to the water park, but I didn't have my phone or camera so no pics of that :(  We started our day on the ferris wheel (per Miss Isabelle).

Here's a view of the park from the top of the wheel

And here's Izzy being a little ornery :)

I was AMAZED at how much Izzy loved to ride the "bigger" rides.  I wasn't sure if she'd go on them herself or not (I wasn't feeling well, especially after THIS ride :)

I don't remember what this ride is called, but the sounds from the drives that move this thing is freaky!  Izzy and I stayed on the ground and watch Jasmin and Joacim ride this one.

And here they are :)

Visit to the Minnesota Zoo

Last weekend, the weather finally became cool enough to venture back to the zoo.  Our first (and only trip) was cut short due to run, and then we've had nothing but ridiculous heat since.  There's no worse place than a zoo when it's hot and you have a 4-year old, is there?

First stop:  bears.  And boy oh boy, did we get a show!  They have a den that has one glass wall, and these two bears (there are 3 in all) came in right as we walked up, and we were able to see some interaction you don't normally get to witness.  This picture is of one bear cleaning the paws of the other bear.  It made the bears seem much more "real" somehow.

We were even lucky enough to watch the trainers work with the bears a little.  Their intent is to train the bears, along with some other animals, to voluntarily come up to them (still in the enclosures) and voluntarily get blood samples taken, which is MUCH better for the animals in the long run.

Gotta get my mug in these shots somehow :)

My favorite place is the family farm.  They have 6 dairy cows that you can pet, and they have a milking demo (which we missed).  We saw baby pigs (as in 2 weeks old), grown pigs, goats, horses.....it was just such a wonderful setup there.  You can ride a tractor too!

farmer Izzy :)

One of the coolest things they had was a dinosaur exhibit.  This is one of the reasons we wanted to get to the zoo, because we knew it wouldn't be there too much longer...it's one of those traveling exhibits.  I mean, LOOK at the detail in this thing!  Even the eyeballs were moving!  Very impressive


Aug 5 2012 - trex prep from Jenn Trunk on Vimeo.

Izzy, of course, was terrified.  And me, being the wonderful parent I am, made her stand in front of it so we could get a picture.

Aug 5 2012 - trex prep from Jenn Trunk on Vimeo.

A little dinosaur dig interactive exhibit.

And we got to see the "baby" moose up close.

We had a GREAT time there.  And we left just as a HUGE group of people were arriving for a company picnic.  The line to get in was over a mile long!!!  Whew....glad I finally took my own advice and got up "early" that Sunday!