A Day at the Zoo and Botanical Garden

"All things bright and beautiful

All creatures great and small

All things wise and wonderful

The Lord God made them all." 

~ Cecil Alexander

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Easter Sunday and sweet Rosie's birthday were just one day apart this year. We began her celebration a bit early and went to the zoo on Sunday and had her cake and presents the following day. We did this a few years ago and she enjoyed it so much she requested it again! 

Late April is a beautiful time for flowers and the zoo, with its well-tended botanical garden, is a place of magic and loveliness. This year, the flowers were just at or slightly past their peak and we walked pathways filled with all the colors of the rainbow and dappled with warm sunshine filtered through gentle trees. 

Taking seven children to the zoo (my own six plus my sons friend, who spent the day with us) was quite an adventure in and of itself. It was worth it though, to see the excitement each child had, from my almost-four year old to my older boys, nearly teenagers. Due to spending a lot of time at each exhibit we encountered and riding on the train we did not see all of the zoo this time. But we will be back! It was most economical to buy a years pass for our family so now we can go anytime and see the zoo and garden in all seasons, which I am so excited about!

There are quite a few photos in this post so if you make it to the end, thank you! 😂 It was difficult to narrow the many I took that day to just a few. In fact, that is the reason this blog post is a few weeks past the time these pictures were taken - it's taken me a while to go through and edit all my photos. I think I took several hundred. It was just so lovely and everywhere I looked there was beauty I wished to capture. What a fun day with happy memories!

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"Every flower is a soul blossoming in nature." 

~Gerard De Nerval