Kyleigh's Story - A Trip to the Reston Petting Zoo, Part II

(6/2/2012)

After everyone else left, we considered hanging around longer because it was our first visit and there were still a lot of things Kyleigh wanted to see. Back at home, there was also a community pizza party with moon bounce that same afternoon. I told Kyleigh we would miss the moon bounce if we stayed. But she decided it was more fun at the petting zoo. So we stayed.

We walk around the rest of the park and saw many more animals. There were turtles, owls, chickens, roosters, rabbits, foxes, reptiles, peacocks (I don't recall ever seeing all-white peacocks before), monkeys, llamas, kangaroos, and many more.

The fur on the white llama was particularly soft. He also didn't mind eating the tree branches Kyleigh picked up from the ground to feed him.

This following picture you cannot see clearly due to the glass reflections, but there were two huge pythons (one yellow and the other black).

I thought the white peacock was very beautiful. Kyleigh still likes the regular blue peacocks because blue is her favorate color.

The funny thing is that even though there were real kangaroos, Kyleigh was more interested in taking a photo with the kangaroo trash can because the real ones were all sleeping and not even looking at us.  

We heard the roosters from far away, and headed over there. In addition to the ones inside the cage, there were also a couple of roosters and chickens outside roaming free. Kyleigh went "Cock-A-Doodle-Doo" at one chicken. It was hilarious. VIDEO HERE.

The Bird House was particularly cool. The fuzzy white thing above Kyleigh's head was a white bird that just flew by.  Look how many birds were on that tree - and that wasn't a big group!

I didn't realize the staff at the door was selling bird feeds that were glued to a stick, so the birds would fly to your hand to get food if you hold the stick up.  Kyleigh just saw birds coming to the sticks in other kids' hands, so she picked up a plain fallen wood stick and tried to get the birds to come. Just when I was about to shell out the money to buy her a real bird feed stick so that she wasn't so bummed when the birds didn't come to her, I found a bird feed stick on the ground that somebody had thrown out. So I gave it to Kyleigh. She was so excited when the birds rushed over to her!

Actually, after I found that first free stick, I saw more and more sticks just lying on the ground. We probably went through a dozen different free bird feed sticks before Kyleigh finally got tired of the birds and wanted to leave. Even though the birds were tiny, they can get heavy! Kyleigh was smart and rested her stick on the pole so she didn't have to use much effort.

Also, two birds were fiercely fighting for the feed on her fingers, which intimidated her quite a bit. I wonder why I didn't take a video! That was my hand in the foreground.

We met another mixed Caucasian/Asian family when we were in the reptile house. The other family was very amazed that Kyleigh spoke excellent Chinese. Kyleigh was happy to have a little brother for 15 minutes, so she was showing him around and telling him not to touch this and stand back from that. The mother commented that Kyleigh would be a great mother one day because she was very protective.

We headed back to the pony ride because the birthday boy's dad gave us an extra ticket before they left. We were almost to the front of the line but Kyleigh had to go to the bathroom. By the time we got back, the pony ride was closed for the current session. Kyleigh said she didn't want to ride any more. At first I thought she just didn't want to wait that long. But later I found out she just wanted to keep the silly "Admit One" ticket. It was nothing special and even had "Office Depot" printed on it without the zoo's logo or anything. The pony ride ticket normally costs $4 so I really didn't want to waste it. I finally convinced Kyleigh that we would get in line and ask the staff whether she could keep the ticket and ride the pony too. Luckily the staff had no problem with that.

The last stop before we headed out was the picnic area. Kyleigh wanted to take a picture with the big bear.

But the real last stop had to be the gift shop! I wasn't planning on buying anything but Kyleigh fell in love at first sight with this blue peacock. I knew from the moment she laid her eyes on it that she had to buy it. Surprisingly, when I asked her which item she picked, she pointed to the gecko that we barely even looked at. Sometimes I really wonder what was going on in her little head. No, of course I wasn't going to buy the silly gecko.

Finally, as the cherry on top, the bouncy house at the community pizza party was still there when we got back! The rental company was told to pick it up after 5 PM but they hadn't showed up at 6:00 PM when we got back. There were a few people from the HOA that were watching the bouncy house. I explained that we had a birthday party earlier and asked if they would still let Kyleigh go in for a bit. So Kyleigh got to jump like crazy too! And soon after she climbed in, the daughter of the HOA person went in too, so Kyleigh had a playmate.

The rental company never showed up while we were there. Eventually the HOA person asked us to leave. I guess they were tired of waiting around. Kyleigh was a little bummed but she knew it was luck that she still got in at all.

Overall, we had a fun-packed day.

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For more stories about my baby Kyleigh, please visit Kyleigh's Stories Group.