As most of you know, we were granted a wish by A Special Wish Foundation, Inc. thanks to one of the Child Life Therapists at the hospital. The most notable wish foundation is of course Make A Wish but unfortunately they do not grant wishes to babies. The child has to be able to express their wish which of course Ambrosia could not as she was not talking. So Taryn, the Child Life Therapist, set out to find a wish foundation that would grant wishes to babies. She located A Special Wish Foundation, Inc. which unfortunately is located in Ohio. She appealed to them to grant a wish for us as we wanted something special to make memories together. She may have made them believe we are a little closer to Cincinnati than we may be. Fortunately for us, once I was in contact with them and was able to send them pictures of Ambrosia they fell in love with her and decided to grant our wish no matter that we weren't in Ohio. I will be forever grateful to them as this ended up being the last outing Ambrosia had.
We decided having a behind the scenes tour of our local zoo (of which we are members!) would be pretty cool. We didn't know what all we might get to do, but the important thing was making memories as a family. We were picked up in a limo bright and early on June 14th and taken to the Louisville zoo before they were open to the public. There we were greeted by the zoo's professional photographer who immediately started snapping pictures. She would accompany us and take pictures so that we wouldn't have to worry about doing so. Next we headed in the administration office where we met the zoo director. He was extremely nice and asked us if we had any favorite animals at the zoo. Braeden made sure he told them how much he likes the rhinos and I mentioned the penguins.
We then hopped in one of their golf carts and headed straight for the rhinos. The rhinos were actually standing up and eating, something I have never seen them doing during all the times we've been to the zoo. The zoo director then decided we could go and pet them! Yes! Pet them! This wasn't something they had planned for us to do but since Braeden said they were his favorite he took us over. He took us back where the zoo keepers are allowed and told us to make sure our hands didn't get in between the fence and the rhinos. He said they liked to be scratched on their ears and on their rears!
We decided having a behind the scenes tour of our local zoo (of which we are members!) would be pretty cool. We didn't know what all we might get to do, but the important thing was making memories as a family. We were picked up in a limo bright and early on June 14th and taken to the Louisville zoo before they were open to the public. There we were greeted by the zoo's professional photographer who immediately started snapping pictures. She would accompany us and take pictures so that we wouldn't have to worry about doing so. Next we headed in the administration office where we met the zoo director. He was extremely nice and asked us if we had any favorite animals at the zoo. Braeden made sure he told them how much he likes the rhinos and I mentioned the penguins.
We then hopped in one of their golf carts and headed straight for the rhinos. The rhinos were actually standing up and eating, something I have never seen them doing during all the times we've been to the zoo. The zoo director then decided we could go and pet them! Yes! Pet them! This wasn't something they had planned for us to do but since Braeden said they were his favorite he took us over. He took us back where the zoo keepers are allowed and told us to make sure our hands didn't get in between the fence and the rhinos. He said they liked to be scratched on their ears and on their rears!
After petting the rhinos, we drove around and looked at other animals. We learned more about how they take care of them, their names and even some of their personalities. It was pretty neat to see and learn more about the animals that we've seen several times. The next behind the scenes thing we got to do was feed the giraffes. We got to feed the two baby boy giraffes some honeysuckle branches. And then we were able to feed their mom some cut up bananas and we also got to pet her.
The next thing we got to do was meet the elephants. They have two elephants, one African and one Asian elephant. The Asian elephant unfortunately is not a friendly elephant so we did not get to touch him. The African elephant however was very friendly and we got to touch her and learn more about her.
We then got to pet a penguin! Besides the rhinos, this was the most exciting thing for me. Braeden wanted no part in petting the penguin. I think it was moving a little too much for Braeden's liking and he decided it was too risky to pet.
As you can probably tell by the pictures I have shown so far, Ambrosia was not herself during this trip. She was pretty solemn. Later that night I broke down and cried because Ambrosia was so much not herself. I wanted everyone to meet the happy cheerful little girl we all had come to know. Ambrosia did perk up a little by the time we were taken out to eat at Cracker Barrel right after the zoo. She had started playing a little there at the table. It's one of the last times she was herself.
I will leave you with more pictures from our zoo visit.
I will leave you with more pictures from our zoo visit.
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