Lots has changed since Felix, Meg and I went on our last adventure (for a recap, see here). He is now almost 16 months old (cue low key sobbing), has a bunch of teeth, an ever-widening spunky streak (this isn’t new, necessarily, just getting more defined on the daily) and a newfound love of all things train-related. On my end, I left my full-time job, got a new part-time gig, and thus began my reassimilation back into the human race, so it seems. It’s been lovely to have more time to do things like go to the zoo with these two, work in the yard, watch tv and just generally, not be so stressed about freaking everything! Meg and Felix are Zoo Members, Zoo Frequenters and Zoo Fangirls, so I was very eager to tag along on an adventure to their oft-visited locale, since they have all kinds of exciting info. They know most of the animals by name, and Meg is full of fun Zoo facts. We happened to pick the day that our very own St. Louis Zoo was again named Best Zoo in the Country, and in an exciting double whammy, the day that the cheetah cubs were allowed to be viewed by the public for the first time. Meg informed me they are called the Bingwa Bunch (Bingwa is their mother) and they are named after numbers 1-8 in Swahili, as there are an astounding eight of them! Also, it was Meg and Brian’s 4th wedding anniversary so yay, that was celebrated as well!

Our first stop was the gift shop to pick up a snack, and I took a quick peek to see if, finally, as the name Nora has recently become more popular, they had any Nora-adorned Zoo-themed merchandise, but alas, my hopes were dashed (see photo below). Story of my life = #nevernora. Good thing I married a dude who has a name that will ALWAYS have a keychain (love you, Alex). I hadn’t been to the Zoo in years, and it has changed a lot, but it is still one of the best free adventures in Saint Louis, no question about that. Everything was going as swimmingly as it could have on Field Trip Friday (oops, we discovered) until we hit the Children’s Zoo, where Mr. F lovingly decided to pet the sheep, as one is wont to do….this was going great until, post-sheep petting, he decided to lick his hand. Thoroughly. This was not just one little lick. Thus, we moved on and got to pet no more sheep. We can only protect them for so long *sniffle*. We did visit the goats as well, which he very much enjoyed and endured sans licking. We rode the “woo woo” aka the train (if you make a train horn motion, he’ll now say “woo woo!!” and do the same motion. #dead) and Meg even snapped some shots of me with my lil’ pal (included at the bottom; thank you, my friend). Take a look at all the fun, below!