A Day At The Zoo

I'm pretty sure that the title "A Day At The Zoo" is a book. But it was a day at the zoo, so you'll just have to excuse me!

As a side note: The appointment at the US Consulate went great! We had everything they wanted (except that the Marriage Licence was a scanned, emailed copy - not an original as it's still in the mail) and the official even said that we don't need to send in the original, that the scanned copy would suffice. *Such a relief!* The only hiccup for the day was when we went to pay the fees and their credit card processor was done. *Grrr* Matt had to leave the Consulate to find an ATM, but was back pretty quickly. We had to wait at least 45 minutes so they could process the six applications we brought in. With all the chaos of last year, we never registered Joshua's birth or death with the US, so we decided to do them together with Naomi's birth registration, passport, and social security number. And Matt's been doing too much travelling (LOL), so he needed new pages sewn into his passport. Did you know you can have that done?

After the Consulate appointment we headed to the Auckland Zoo. I haven't been since I was a teenager, and I had a feeling Oceana would get a kick out of the Zoo. Madagascar is a favorite movie at our house right now.



She walked a lot today, but she's only 3 and her legs could only take so much. My legs can only take so much too, and I wore boots that rub my little toes after walking all over the zoo. But I can't sit on Matt's shoulders. Or at least he wouldn't let me. All that to say, Oceana hitched a ride like little girls should!

Speaking of hitching a ride.... We didn't bring the stroller. I carried Naomi all over the place in this. She went to the Consulate in it, to the Zoo, and she even ate in it! (Took some maneuvering, but that's one of the selling points of the Moby Wrap.

Oh my, the cheese factor! Naomi was such a good girl! She slept all the way to Auckland, and woke up just ten minutes before we stopped at the park so I could feed her. She slept through part of the appointment at the Consulate, but stayed quiet for most of the awake part. Then she slept on the way to the Zoo, and woke to eat about the time the chickens decided to try and eat our lunch (about 30 roosters run free outside the Zoo... not very pleasant when you're trying to eat). Then she slept through all but the last half our at the Zoo, and I fed her in the wrap. She was awake on the way to our friend's place, but then ate there and slept all the way home (3 hours). She slept through dinner and let me get home before she needed to eat again. I was worried she wouldn't sleep tonight, but she was awake for about 3 hours and then just went to sleep now at 11:30pm. I'm headed to bed before she decides to wake up!

She may look little. But my little girl is getting so big! She was so excited about the elephants, lions, tigers, monkeys, hippos, and giraffes! She's in love with Madagascar the movie, so the animals were named Alex (lion), Gloria - who she actually calls Laura (hippo), Melman (giraffe), and Marty (zebra). She was a riot to see all day. And she would not let us forget about the elephants. :)

A fun ...... long ...... day. I'm gonna go fall into bed before I get my first middle-of-the-night wake up call!