Hogle Zoo with Owen

On Saturday, Jon and I took our sweet nephew Owen to the zoo. Utah has such a fun zoo called Hogle Zoo. It has been on of my favorite zoos. My mom has been going to this zoo since she was little and every time we made a visit to Utah when I was growing up, we had to to hit the zoo.

Owen came to spend the weekend with us and I decided he was ready to visit the zoo and take up this tradition my mom had started with us.

We arrived pretty early and the first thing Owen saw was the train. He wanted to go on the train so badly but we told him we would do that the very end. So we walked around and saw so many different animals.

We saw zebras, elephants, bears, seals, rhinos, chickens, peacocks, monkeys, lions, tigers, etc., etc.

We watched an elephant show where one elephant painted holding a brush in his trunk and another elephant did a headstand. At the polar bear exhibit, you could stand right at the glass and watch the polar bear come up and look at all the kids and then he would do a backstroke. We could watch this for hours. We also watched the rhinos being fed and watched the seal show.

I was able to convince Owen to ride the carousel and he picked a giraffe to ride on. He actually quite enjoyed it. I also had to get a picture by Leo the Lion. However, Owen wasn't too keen on putting his head in his mouth to get a drink.

The Hogle Zoo now has a splash pad called Lighthouse Point, and I think this was probably one of the highlights of the zoo visit. We let Owen play for at least 20 to 30 minutes until he was completely soaked. But I have never seen such pure joy on a little boys face.

After all the walking around and eating some snacks, it was finally time to ride the train. This kid was so excited to get on this train and waited so patiently in line to board. After we got in the car to go home, Owen's little voice piped up and said "Sally.....I loved the train!"

I am so glad we took him to this fun place and that he has so much fun. We are al exhausted afterwards, but decided it was totally worth it. Thanks Owen to going to the zoo with with us. And thank you to Liz and Scott for sharing this sweet little boy with us.

Just a few more fun pics of this cute little guy: