Zoolights

On Friday, Mike, Dylan and I went to Zoolights at the Stoneham Zoo with Mike's mother. We have been enjoying such a mild winter thus far that the temperatures that evening were a bit of a shock to the system. It wasn't that cold in the scheme of things (only around 30 degrees) but man did it feel frigid! So, we all bundled up and had a nice time there.

Bundled up for Zoolights!

Basically, the zoo opens a small portion of the zoo for viewing but has all the trees and displays in the zoo decorated. There is also a separate area that is covered in lights and has fun displays that contains Santa's house and some small rides.

Snowman Dylan

Since it was dark, we weren't able to find some of the outside animals in their enclosures, but we did get to see the big, wide eyes of some of the owls. We also watched the two toed sloth move about and the meerkats romp around their enclosure. Dylan watched and seemed to enjoy the animals too! It's so fun to see him be able to (developmentally) observe and take in more of the world around him.

In addition to seeing a few of the zoo animals, we got to pet and get pictures with their two 8 month old reindeer!

Mike and Dylan at Zoolights

After our trip to Zoolights, we headed back to Mike's parent's house to drop off Dylan (and drink some hot tea to warm up). Then Mike and I headed to his sister's house for her annual "friends" Christmas party. It was great to get out for a couple of hours sans kid and chat with family and friends.

Unfortunately, Dylan didn't give his grandparents the easiest night. As all you parents out there know, evening time is the witching hour when kids tend to get cranky. Well, this happened to be one of those nights for Dylan and he got pretty worked up while we were gone and gave his grandparents quite the show. They did a great job getting him calmed down enough for him to take a little rest. So, by the time we got back, he was happy as a clam, smiling and laughing. Hopefully he didn't scare them off babysitting!