Halloween 2009

We had a fun and HOT weekend! Friday Izzy and I went to Jungle Island. We got a pretty good start on the day and were there around 11ish (right as the festivities begun). They had probably 8 stations throughout the park, each sponsored by places like Target and Costco. Home Depot had built these little cages that looked like phone booths, complete with front doors for the kids to knock on and then the representative would give them candy! It was a really cute idea! The pavillions had activities like cookie decorating, facepainting, and coloring/arts and crafts. There was a dj spinning fun old spooky songs like "Purple People Eater" and had sack races. Luckily most of Jungle Island has shade and we only stayed for maybe 2 hours (definitely had to see the Tiger Show again- they have a new, 5 week old white tiger cub!).
Zach got off work right as we were getting home around 1:30pm, so we relaxed and grabbed a quick bite at this little Mexican place called "Lime" that is kind of like "Moe's" (I really miss Moe's...).

Saturday morning we took Princess Cinderella to the Miami MetroZoo for MetroBoo. Mom did a great job (with help from Julie!) on Izzy's dress!!! We got there around 11:30 ish and were planning on meeting Zach's co-worker and his family. However they were running late so we went on ahead. The zoo is huge and had gosh, like 30 booths, sponsored by all sorts of places like boutique stores, Christian and Private Schools, Radio Disney, and various kids' party places. They funneled all the kids through the path of all these booths before you really got to any of the animals, which worked out really well.
It was pushing 90 degrees and barely a cloud in the sky. After the trick or treating I changed a thankful Izzy into a lightweight sundress for the remainder of the day. We sought some A/C in the gift shop where Izzy made fast friends with dozens of stuffed tigers, leopards and gorillas. l
We later met up with Zach's buddy at the Children's area (complete with carousel). We stayed with them for just about an hour visiting then they went off to play in the water area and we headed to the animals. The highlights definitely were the Asian and African Elephants, the enormous SilverBack Gorillas, somersaulting Orangutangs, and the brand new Amazon exhibit featuring a beautiful Jaguar.
The place is absolutely huge and they rent out those 4-8 person 4-wheeled bicycle/trolly things which is a great idea, but sucks if you are walking on a crowded day b/c all you hear is "ding ding ding" and just as you barely jump out of the way you see a trolly with 6 adults and 2 kids hanging off the front zipping by you. They also have a monorail system to take you around the park but somehow we kept missing it. I bet we walked 10-12 miles in the 5 hours we were there. Lots of fun though! We were so happy to get home and showered!!