We went to a BBQ picnic with family friends at Frying Pan Park on Sunday, June 28th. The girls enjoyed all the food, hanging out with the other kids and pets, and we walked over to the petting farm afterwards to check out the farm animals!
The Marin County Fair is going on from June 30 to July 4, so we drove over to San Rafael yesterday so that we could give Mio her first taste of a fair. She was too young and short to go on the rides, but she still had a lot of fun with the farm animals that were there!
In the area with the farm animals, Mio got to see so many animals — rabbits, chickens, geese, sheep, turkeys, cows, goats, deer, horses, donkeys, alpacas, llamas, potbelly pigs, wallabies… there were so many that she got to see for the first time!
I think one of the highlights for myself personally was watching the potbelly pig race! I’d never seen a pig/hog race before, so it was actually really fun to watch!
There was a petting farm area specifically designed for little kids, so that they could go in to touch and feed the free-roaming animals. While Mio had been really brave up until then, trying to touch the animals inside their cages and pens, she suddenly became very timid when she was in an area where they weren’t behind bars.
We finally got her to willingly feed a little fawn, probably because she felt safe as it was one of the few animals that was caged in.
After Mio was done eating, we walked around to try some of the delicious fair grub ourselves…
With our tummies full, and our hearts warmed by all the cute animals, we headed home. It was a great first carnival experience for our little family! 😀
On Saturday, our little family took a trip to the Oakland Zoo! I’d never been, and had been telling Dan that we should take Mio once the weather got warmer — since Saturday was surprisingly warm, we seized the opportunity to finally go! Our friends Kayo and Sung-kook and their 16-month old son Jinwoo also happened to be free that day, so we invited them to come with us.
I grew up going to the National Zoo in Washington, DC, which is pretty impressive and much larger, but I really enjoyed visiting the Oakland Zoo for the first time. It was very clean, well-maintained, and very child-friendly — there were lots of open areas where children could run around and climb onto animal sculptures, and a petting zoo where they could actually touch some of the sheep and goats. I think the more intimate size of the zoo actually works in favor for parents with young children, because you can get through the whole zoo (or a lot of it, at least), without getting too exhausted but still be able to see all the animals that kids love to see (monkeys, giraffes, lions, tigers, elephants. etc.).
It was of course Mio’s first time at the zoo, and although she’s a little too young to truly appreciate it, she definitely seemed intrigued (and at times, perplexed) by some of the animals at the zoo. Here are some of my favorites from the photos we took at the zoo!
You can see the full set of photos we took on our outing to the Oakland Zoo in the slideshow below: