Zoo Lights

I mentioned in my post on Monday that I've had work over this holiday, which seems to be the way of it. I only get work at the busiest times! But, who's complaining? Not this girl. And Eric was awesome and as soon as he was on vacation from work, he took over essentially solo parenting for the weekend before Christmas so I could keep my nose to the grindstone. And after the New Year, it was right back at it. I'm very grateful both for the work and for Eric's help!

I did take a break for an evening so we could go to ZooLights at the Jacksonville Zoo. We had a lot of fun at the zoo's Halloween event, so we figured we'd have to check out the holiday lights as well.

We had a great time! There were, of course, lights...:

Octopus and seahorse lights

Rhino

Eric and a golfing bear

Decked-out zoo train

Hanging out by the penguin lights

...costumed characters...:

Peanuts!

Ellie loves it

Who-ville folks

Candy Land

...other photo ops...:

Merry Christmas from E.J. the dolphin!

...and other miscellaneous interesting things to see:

Elephant statue wearing a rather festive knit sweater

Jellyfish parade

But the most fun was on the Great Lawn. They were selling hot chocolate and packets of goodies to make s'mores around the fire. They also had ice skating, a showing of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" (E.J. found Hermey to be quite hilarious), a spot to visit Santa and "snow." Ellie was absolutely thrilled with the snow! I'm not sure I've ever seen such joy on her face before.

"IT'S SNOWING!!!"

Eric roasting our marshmallows

Enjoying the fruits of Eric's labor

And, of course, it's just not a visit to the zoo without a ride on the carousel.

I suspect this is her happy place.

We had a great time!

Hooray ZooLights!