So, here it goes again...Marisa and I have had a great week keeping busy with Patrick and Amy while they were on their Spring Break. Monday we took Savannah (Amy's neice), Patrick and Marisa to Chuck E. Cheese and the park. As we pulled into the parking lot, Patrick and Savannah were both excitedly yelling out..."Yay, Chuck E. Cheese!!" Marisa looked around really confused because she wasn't sure what the excitement was all about. This was Marisa's first time to Chuck E. Cheese and it definitely didn't take her long to fit in with the other kids.
On Tuesday, Amy and I took the kids to an amazing play area in Coppell. The place is a huge wooden fort type play area and a huge pond with lots of ducks. They had lots of fun feeding the ducks. While we were there, we promised the kids that we'd be going to the zoo the next day. So, the kids had something very exciting to look forward to.
The original plan was to meet Marisa's playmate, Natasha, at the zoo at 10:00AM but at the last minute they backed out because the weather was going to be overcast and Natasha was feeling a bit under the weather. Amy and I forged on with our plans. We packed our lunches and headed out at 10:30, figuring that we'd be there by 11:30 for a fun filled day at the zoo.
The drive into Fort Worth was pretty uneventful and we got to the I-35W/I-30W junction in about 30 minutes. From there, the zoo entrance was only 4 miles away. 4 MILES, I SAY!!!! We spent the next 3 hours inching our way towards the zoo. IT TOOK US 3 HOURS TO MOVE 4 MILES!!!! Apparently, everyone in the Dallas Metroplex had the same idea we had because Wed is half-price. By 12:30, we'd eaten everything that we had brought for lunch. The kids only had 2 toys to entertain the two of them. It was a really bad time for Amy to leave the portable DVD player at home. Somehow the two managed to entertain each other and every now and then they'd ask when we'd get there. Every 15 minutes we'd tell them, we just need to take this exit right there and take two turns and we'd be there. The two were amazingly good considering that we were trapped in the van for over 3 hours. At 1:45 we finally merged onto the exit and were on our way to the zoo entrance.
The excitement in the van began to rise again...since the zoo was coming into view. As we drove closer to where we should have been turning left into the park, we noticed it was blocked off and Fort Worth police were motioning us to move on. When we got close enough, the police told us that the zoo was closed and they weren't letting anyone in. WHAT?!?!?
CLOSED?!?!? WE SAT IN TRAFFIC FOR 3 HOURS TO BE TOLD WE COULDN'T GO IN!?!?! It was just as Josh said. He had told me that we were crazy thinking that we'd be able to get in, but we were going to keep trying. Amy and I were two very determined moms and we weren't about to let our kids down. Thank goodness Amy decided to call the zoo to ask if they were really closed. We found out that the police had decided to close the zoo to help alleviate the traffic problems but that we wouldn't be turned away at the gate AND that every year the Fort Worth Zoo was on the news because the Wednesday of Spring Break is THE BUSIEST DAY OF THE YEAR! Wow...why couldn't we have known that before?? As I made a U-Turn to get back to the highway, I heard Patrick say "So, we drove all of this way for nothing??" Talk about tugging at a mom's heartstrings. At this point, I noticed that the policeman neglected to block off the right turn into the park for the northbound traffic and I decided I was going for it. We didn't come all this way to give up!It only took 20 minutes to find parking and by 2:15 we were walking towards the zoo entrance. Notice how excited the two kids are to finally get out of the van!!!
We were there for about 3 hours and the kids had a blast!! And, you probably wonder if it was worth the 3.5 hour drive, but it truly was worth seeing the excitement on their faces. Marisa and Patrick had the most fun in the Snake house. Searching for the snake within their cages was so fun for them. The two kids are great together! Marisa thinks she's big like Patrick and it's so funny to see her trying to act bigger. When you tell her that she's little, she says, "no, I'm big." Here are some other great pics of the two pals.
I believe we're looking for the orangutan in this picture. Marisa couldn't see them and said, "Where'd they go???"
On our way out of the park, we made a bathroom pitstop and got these great shots. It was a great end to a very long day!
Amazingly, we didn't have to deal with bad rush hour as we were expecting. But we learned our lesson. NEVER GO TO THE ZOO ON THE WEDNESDAY OF SPRING BREAK!!! We were apparently, 4 of 16,076 visitors to the zoo that day. That's only counting those who bought tickets. It was an attendance record!
