Arielle’s First Trip to the Stone Zoo

For my birthday this year, I decided that I wanted to celebrate by taking Arielle on her first trip to the zoo. So on Wednesday morning, we headed to The Stone Zoo and I wasn’t sure who was more excited: Arielle, Alex, my mom, or me! I would say that while we had some rocky moments at the beginning, our visit was a huge success. Here are the highlights from Arielle’s first trip to the Stone Zoo.

She wasn’t a fan of the Black Bear … at first

One of the first exhibits we visited was home to two beautiful black bears. Arielle loves furry friends so we had pushed her carriage right up to the glass where one of the bears was taking a nap. Well, she wasn’t so excited about this and started whimpering. We wheeled her right out of there and she calmed down a bit. At the end of our visit we took another pass by and now that she was in Daddy’s arms she wasn’t scared, even when the bear was walking towards her!

The T. Rex Adventure added to the Experience

Arielle surprised me when she was also frightened of the animatronic baby dinos popping out of their eggs. I found them quite cute. But she roared right back at the life-size Tyrannosaurus Rex. I just don’t know with this child sometimes!

She Purred when She saw the Big Cats

Arielle has been around cats since she came home from the hospital as we have two boys, Sherlock and Watson. We’ve been raising her to call them her “brothers” because they are our babies too. So it was no surprise that she loved seeing the big cats and she purred and meowed at them from behind the glass.

Arielle does a mean Monkey Impression

When we got to the monkey section, she actually started making monkey sounds and it was so cute. She’s done this before when watching movies and animal shows but it was so funny to see her do it at the zoo.

The Flamingos may have been Her Favorite

We finished up our visit with a stop at the Flamingos and she went wild! When she gets excited, she squeals pretty loud so a few times we had to calm her down. She loved the bright color of the birds’ wings and they seemed to squawk right back at her.

As I am always concerned for the well being of our animal friends, I did check into Zoo New England’s record and they are an accredited member of the Association of Zoos & Aquariums, meaning they “meet the highest standards in animal care and welfare and provide a fun, safe, and educational family experience.” And we did have fun!