The Hurst Family: My Review of the Atlanta Zoo (and I made that rhyme, just for you!;)

Several weeks ago, our family made our first trip to the Atlanta Zoo! We had been thinking about an Atlanta trip for a while since the girls had never been above Macon. Earlier in the school last year, they participated in the Six Flags "Read to Succeed Program" and received 2 free tickets to Six Flags in Atlanta. Then later I found out from a friend that after renting an informational DVD about the zoo from the library, we could get 4 free tickets! That's an $80 value! So we finally put the date on the calendar, reserved our hotel, secured wonderful babysitters for Daniel (Thanks Mama and Daddy!), and got excited about our trip!

Below are pictures from our trip to the zoo. Wish I could have gotten them all, but it takes too long to load them!

Aubrey and I at the entrance

My husband and Anna also at the entrance

These beautiful flamingoes are the first animals you see. I couldn't stand there long because of the smell. We were a little scared about the rest of the zoo since the smell almost made us sick, but thankfully this was not an indication of what it was like the rest of the time.

Aubrey looking at the birds. The bird area was okay, but the Wild Adventures aviary enclosure is better.

One of the many things that impressed me was our ability to be so close to the animals. The giraffes were huge and interesting to watch!

Reminded me of the Lion King movie!

Gorillas were my favorite. All these started with the famous "Willie B." gorilla that arrived many years ago. These are his offspring. One of the park employees was in the gorilla lookout room with us and taught me about some of the gorillas. They live like kings and queens!

Wonder what this one was thinking?

Beautiful landscaping to walk through. We were blessed that even though we were in "hot"lanta in late July, the temps that day were only in the low eighties. Like here in So. GA, it had rained almost everyday in July, but thankfully, no rain that day!

Anna begged to do some rock climbing, so we gave in!:) She made it to the top..twice! The park also had a little kiddie water park area (mostly for younger kids), but we did not bring bathingsuits, nor did we have enough time.

We asked this ole wise owl how many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie roll pop, but it didn't know.

Cutest "animals" at the park!lol (The zoo does have a very nice souvenir shop!)

The panda bears were adorable. One of them had given birth to twins about a week before we arrived. The babies weren't shown at the zoo, but we saw them on the website.

My husband captured this awesome picture. We were so close to these animals!

Another fantastic shot.

This is the orangutan "home". The animals are off in the distance on the right side. We got a better look at them from another angle.

Komodo dragon sitting behind them!

The Reptile house was full of wonderful animals (and some amphibians, too).

HUGE gaboon viper!

Our most favorite memory of the zoo was the bird show! If you go, don't miss it! The reptile show was okay, but only one of the employees was there that day to teach, so he couldn't do much without assistance. (And though there were volunteers from the crowd, he couldn't accept!;) We didn't arrive at the park till around 1:00 and barely had enough time to do it all by 5:30. We didn't do the train ride, water park, or read everything there was to learn. I think next time we go, we'll get there earlier. Definitely a trip we will remember with fondness!

Below are just a few from the day we spent at six flags: