The Tampa Zoo!

One of my other must see destinations was the Tampa Zoo. I wanted to see the Manatees! It was all we were asking for...and a beautiful day too. We got the beautiful day, but after hours of searching, no manatees. Everyone still had lots of fun. We lathered ourselves with sunscreen and loaded up the babies & diaper bags in my brand new, but used, double stroller...thanks Jaclyn; I love it!!

I was excited that we were able to see a giraffe up close. It was a station where you could feed them special crackers...we just watched. Talan was a little intimidated by the size of the giraffe. The picture makes it look a lot smaller than it really is.
We also found a sting ray touch pool. The rays would swim along the edge and you could touch them as they swam by. It took Talan a while to reach his hand in the water, but once he did, we couldn't get him out. He loved them. I wasn't sure if he really was paying attention to the rays or just playing in the water, but he really was watching them swim all around.

There was a huge ray just hanging out in the corner that we couldn't resist to touch. He never swam off either. It just sat there staring up at us...food?
Our quest for manatees continued but we only found a few turkeys. A huge dominant jake was strutting around & courting all his little hens. It was exciting to see this up close. James would "call" it and the turkey would strut even bigger and sometimes call back. Talan really liked that. Over all, it was an exhausting day, but Talan had so much fun. Parker was just happy that we finally stopped and gave him a bottle. And once again, no pics with me. I don't mind being the camera woman, but I definitely need more pics of me with my family.