Hope you enjoyed the posts on
Day 1 and
Day 2 of our Virginia vacation. I will post about our last day (and kiddo #4's birthday!) soon.
Today, we visited the Norfolk Zoo. What an amazing place! It, by far, is one of the most beautifully laid out zoos I have ever visited. It is wide open and spacious, the habitats are actual real habitats, with multiple species living together! When in "Asia," you honestly feel like you have crossed continents; the same with "Africa." Everything is authentic-- down to the food they feed the animals. They grow only foods that would be found on that continent in each "area" so the aninals are fed these organically produced foods indigenous to the continent from which they originated.
Kiddo #3 was so excited. He loves elephants. I mean he really loves elephants. He can tell you almost anything you ever wanted to know about the creatures. He collects them in all forms (stuffed animal, figurine, toy, etc.). He was devastated when the Philadelphia Zoo decided to close their elephant exhibit. It upset me, as well. Thousands of children will no longer have any exposure to these grand and majestic animals. They claimed financial reasons. The Virginia Zoo has a lovely train ride throughout the zoo for $2 a person. They come right out and tell you that the funds from the ridership on the train are going to finance a new exhibit. They also set up a tent selling Christmas ornaments and hot cocoa. The proceeds from that are going to building a new animal hospital that will be built on site and open for patrons to walk through. For that, I give them enormous credit! They are proactive. And, it is amazing that their entrance fees (and concession costs, for that matter) are significantly less than our zoo. And yet they are able to do so much.
Ok, I digress. Back to our vacation. :-)
The kids LOVED this zoo. They were able to pretend to be prairie dogs
and they suggested that I rename the blog temporarily to "Home to 4 Otters," lol
They were amazed at the one exhibit where the giraffes are able to come right up to the visitors
and of course, there were the elephants, one of whom was named Lisa. :-)
After dinner, we headed to Colonial Williamsburg for their "In Defense of our Liberty" program. Wow. We literally enlisted in the Continental Army. We were drilled, marched and trained for over an hour. Despite the occasional giggle (for which we were reprimanded, lol!) for not being able to know our left from our right, we received many lessons. Not just on Army discipline and how to handle a musket and cannon, but on sacrifice. We saw first hand what the soldiers had to endure who won our freedom for us. We experienced the smoke from just 4 muskets being fired in our direction as we were marching and it was thick and choking. It gave us the slightest clue of what hell it would be like when hundreds of muskets were firing in both directions and how the line would have to be held no matter the chaos, no matter the losses, because the cause was too great.
The first sergeant, at the conclusion of the re-enactment told us that it was the ultimate paradox. These men were fighting for liberty, but voluntarily gave up all of their freedom in joining the military. You cannot think or act on your own. Why? Because of their families, because of their country and for posterity. Posterity? For us. Future generations. They did it for us. And he told us what can we do to honor their sacrifice; what we can do for all of the soldiers that have fought for our freedom from the 1700s to the present: REMEMBER.
