A Trip to the Zoo

Thursday was the first full day of school for the elementary kids. After the rough start I decided to do something fun with the little ones who aren't in school yet. I had bought a year pass to the zoo back in July with the intent of using it soon...well, I'm not pushing Jeff around in a wheelchair! I decided it would be easier to just take the little ones until Jeff could walk on his own.
We started at the monkey house...this little guy was right in front of us...then proceeded to grab the fence with his tail and hang upside down...Joran and Maren just squealed...then he moved off down the fence...I'm not very "quick draw" with the camera...



We then went to see the elephants. One of the elephants just had a baby so they were in isolation for a couple more weeks. There was one in the exhibit...he was close to the fence eating. Maren just sat and watched him. When I asked her if we were ready to move on this is what she said, "But I love him!" Needless to say we watched him eat for a little longer.

Next to the elephant exhibit, there is this gigantic elephant...out of the truck comes all sorts of noises and it even blows water...Maren was scared of all of this, so we had to hurry and take the picture before it started again.


Next we visited the rhinos...they were also eating. They had a window we could look through and watch, but it didn't photograph well, so we went for the next best thing.


We saw others animals along our way, but the next funny thing happened at the giraffes. We watched these outside for a few minutes and then went inside. There was a baby giraffe in with two other giraffes. The baby would walk right up to the fence and look right at you. The mommy giraffe went to the bathroom right in front of Maren...all she said was uh-oh. I told her someone would come in and clean it up. That night as I was laying next to her before bed we were talking about the zoo and all the animals we had seen. I asked her about the giraffes...she told me they were messy and someone had to clean up their grapes...it took me a minute to put together that she was talking about the mommy pooping (I have to give it to her -it looked like purple grapes!). I still smile about that one and we did clarify that mommy giraffes don't poop grapes...


After coming up the hill, they were ready for lunch. We had our picnic next to the animal carousel. It worked for good bribery in eating their food before going for a ride. Maren chose the babylion ( the three new tiger cubs were out, but were sleeping in some bushes so we couldn't see them)

Joran chose the lemur that we saw jumping all over.


Off to the gorilla and ape exhibits. It seemed to be nap time here so once again we settled for the statue. Our zoo visit wouldn't be complete without a picture next to the measuring gorillas...



To finish off our trip we had to get our picture with our heads in the lion fountain...Maren reached up to touch it's teeth just as I was taking the picture.




On the way out Joran and Maren cooled off in the water ball...


It was a fun, quick trip for us...had to be home when the bus arrived! We're going back in a couple weeks to visit again...maybe it will have cooled off some by then!