[Countdown to Christmas] LA Zoo Lights

From the minute I saw that Desiree had shared a Living Social deal for the LA Zoo Lights on Facebook, I was intrigued. We have never been to the LA Zoo and to find out that they had a Christmas exhibit sounded super fun to me. I quickly asked her what it was all about, she said it would be her first time going so she wasn't totally sure but it sounded fun. I agreed, asked when she was going, and decided to get tickets for the same day.

Seth was excited (as excited as a man would be to see lights at the zoo lol) and I'm sure was still hesitant about meeting up with Desiree and her husband since she was still my internet friend - so to speak - that I met for the first time the weekend before. (He calls my blog friends "virtual reality friends" lol).

Regardless, we headed up to LA around 3:30pm on Sunday in order to have a little early dinner before we went to the zoo. It rained on and off on our way there (what the heck, California? It NEVER rains until we make plans to do something outside...) but we were hopeful that it would stop before our zoo lights reservation at 6pm. We stopped at a little pizza joint that we found online (with good reviews) and had some garlic knots and pepperoni pizza.

After dinner, we headed over to the zoo a little early since we didn't know how the parking situation would be and oddly enough, we parked right next to Desiree and her family. When we were driving up, we saw that there was a HUGE line to get in and so despite the fact that it was still raining, we decided to get in line. The rain never let up and they were late to open the gates, but we were all still in good spirits and ready to go in.

Mason kept wanting to hold the umbrella which quickly turned into him trying to fling water all over Desiree, Scott, and Marcus and me profusely apologizing for getting them more wet than they already were.

Once inside, we were immediately amazed by the display of lights. I apologize for the bad quality pictures - it was hard to get good ones in the middle of a rain storm.

They had lights everywhere. It was gorgeous.

By this point, we had only been walking around for about 10 minutes and it was still raining. Seth, Mason, and I were trying to all share an umbrella and it wasn't working. I gave it to them and used Mason's changing pad as a rain shield, but that wasn't working either.

We passed the nearest store and I told them I was going in. I was not above wearing a poncho to try to stay dry... and that's just what I did.

Or should I say... we :)

Some of us were happier about it than others.

Once we had our ponchos on and the littlest member of our family had a snack, we were back on our way to see the lights.

They had gorgeous displays everywhere. I had a hard time refraining from taking about a million photos of the whole thing.

While Mason was busy eating and I was busy snapping pictures, Seth and Scott were busy bonding over "guy things" i.e. talking about beer.

Luckily both men are married to bloggers and understand that we want to take a hundred, million photos and don't have a problem stopping every two feet.

(thanks guys!)

We came upon reindeer (real, live reindeer!) and I think I was the most excited out of the whole group. I'm not quite sure why, but I've never seen a reindeer in person before and it just seemed really cool.

In the midst of the lights, we were lucky enough to stumble upon one jolly old man in a red suit - SANTA! Online it said that he was only there on select nights and we didn't see our date listed so we were fully prepared to not see Santa when all of a sudden, there he was.

Some of us were happier to see him than others and as a result, we ended up with the token "I hate Santa and I will cry if I want to" picture.

Poor kid.

We walked around some more and just took in the sights.

Despite the rain, we all had a great time and the lights were AWESOME! The pictures don't do them justice. We definitely want to go back next year (and I'm even planning on going to the LA Zoo just for the zoo part sometime soon!) 

 The big boys had good conversation and the girls had fun taking in the sights, taking pictures, and chatting. And even though the little boys didn't have a chance to really play with each other, I just know they would get along really well.

Can't wait for our next Christmas adventure this coming weekend!

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Linking up with Beth.