It's a Christmas Miracle - Zoo with my sister's family
Last Christmas things were still up in the air with Covid and indoor gatherings weren't really a thing, but I had hopes for the future, so we bought my sister's family a zoo pass in hopes to connect with them sometime in the next year in an outdoor setting. Well, mid September is when it finally happened. My sister kind of operates at the last minute, so with only a few days before the weekend, she messaged me to ask if we could meet on the weekend. Since we are just starting to do more things we did have the weekend free, so it was possible. It was the first time I had seen the boys in my sister's family in two and a half years. I saw the girls at a baby shower earlier in the summer, but in person it was so nice. Everyone has grown so much.
My kids are kind of done with the zoo as they have gone multiple times every year since they were born, but this time it was a visit with my sister, which means it was different. We usually go to visit the animals, but this time we did some of the extras. There is of course the carousel which my kids have done before, as well as the zoomobile, but Easton was especially excited to do the Gorilla climb ropes course. Normally we don't go during busy times so this is closed when we go, but since the kids were willing to wait and it was a weekend, which meant it was open, we spent over an hour waiting for their turn to have a fun time in the sky.
It was nice to spend some time with my nieces and nephews. The bonus... we were told when we bought the passes that they would auto start in March with a one year expiry, however, for some reason, their expiry is one year from the September date. We asked about it, and they said... don't worry, we set it up so you can fully utilize your year pass. Hooray!
It was a beautiful day to spend outdoors together.