Just the 3 Of Us: Park, Mall, Zoo, oh my!

I took the day off on Friday and planned a fun-filled day for Sabrina. First we went to a fairly-new area park that has equipment for kids of all ages and abilities. I knew from my research that this place is popular and that the small parking lot fill sup quickly. We got there at 8am and we were the first ones there -- the whole park was ours to explore! By the time we left around 9:30, the lot was almost full. Then we headed to the mall where we met up with my dear friend Sandra and her 3 sons. Her youngest, Carlos is 13 months older than Sabrina. They bonded quickly and held hands during the entire 10-15 minute walk from one end of the mall to the other. It was too cute.

Today the 3 of us decided to go to a ~~small~~ local zoo. Sabrina is bursting at the seam with love of animals. Whenever we take "the back way" to Wegmans, we pass by several horse fields and farms and she squeals with glee at the sight of the horses, then makes the sign for "more" and says "More horsies! More horsies!". She'd never been up close to one, though, so I wondered how she'd react.

We started off small, allowing her to pet a little grey bunny. Then we went to the petting area, where she saw sheep (and lambs) and goats. We'd bought a cup of feed and when I held out, they came right up to the fence to eat. She had a weary, cautious smile on her face the whole time :) We saw some rhea and Sabrina seemed to like them. We took a tractor-pulled wagon ride around a part of the zoo (that's the best way to see the bison, zebras, and watusi). Sabrina did really well until one of the very large watusi (large horned cows from Africa) came right up to our side of the wagon.
Gene held out the cup of feed and it went for it, sticking its tongue/lips out and taking in whatever it could. At one point it tried to pry the cup out of Gene's hand and Gene later said he thought the thing would bite his hand. It must have been really hungry, I suppose. As it stood there munching on the contents of the cup that were now in its mouth, Sabrina got scared (a delayed reaction), started crying, and lept into my arms. It took about 2 minutes of reassuring her that everything was OK, and that the "moo-moo cow" was gone.

Here are some photos of our weekend so far...