The Zoo - Again

Tim had to work this Saturday. I decided to take the kids to the zoo as I couldn't figure out anything else that would be fun for them to do at home. Sometimes going out is way less difficult than staying home! I'm so thankful for a zoo membership. It's great to know we can go anytime without having to pay extra. Though, it is MUCH more fun to go when Tim can go too.

Bekah is a big fan of bugs (well, at least until today when she was stung by a wasp). Here she is with a large preying mantis art type thing at the zoo.

I never seem to get a good rhino picture. They're always hiding. But not this time! Here it is for your viewing enjoyment:


One thing I was surprised/impressed by was how much my kids remember from our last trip to the zoo... they remembered the order of the animals. Bekah remembered that after the rhino was the "baby frocodiles". I didn't even remember that they had frocodiles!

Ryan hadn't napped yet, so it wasn't long before he was getting restless. Nothing a picture couldn't cure. Later in the day, I pulled out the camera and Ryan started yelling "CHEESE" over and over. (I was attempting to take a picture of an animal, not him.) This lady next to me commented that she'd never seen a child that small be so excited to have his picture taken. He's a nut!

Not long after this picture, he looked like this:


I got an email on Thursday that one of the elephants had a baby! We waited in line for quite some time to catch a glimpse of 3 day old Angelina. She's 3'-7". There's another baby expected any day. Elephants are pregnant for 22 months. I'm certainly thankful that God didn't decide to make it that long for humans too! Maybe that's why elephants don't have many babies. Here's "little" Angelina. The picture isn't so good since they were behind glass.

Joey really liked the grizzly bear last time as he was playing in the water a lot and was really fun to watch. This time it was almost 90 degrees outside and all of the bears looked pretty much like this:


Don't worry though, it's wasn't too hot for the dear. This is Melvin and he's 17 years old. They told us that dear in the wild rarely make it to age 5, but that dear in captivity can live to be upwards of 20. I'm guessing at this point in time, Melvin was wondering if they had returned him to the wild.

Last time we were at the zoo, we some how managed to miss the reptile house (yeah, I wasn't THAT sad). This time I made sure we found it as I think it's important for me not to pass on my irrational fear of snakes to the kids. I did shiver at one point while trying to force myself to look at the rattlesnake, but other than that it went pretty well. Here they are in the meercat habitat.

When we went to the zoo with the cousins last fall, we took a picture of Ryan by the naked mole rats as he had managed to poopsplode and no longer had a shirt... kind of resembling a naked mole rat. I tried to take a picture of him there this time too, but it's up in a wall, so I had to somehow hold Ryan up there and take the picture... so yeah, no naked mole rats present.
Here's a link to last fall at the zoo.

They have a misting station near the end of the zoo. I vote they install several more. We spent a while here cooling off.

Right before leaving, the kids rode on the carousel. Joey went by himself, and Bekah & Ryan rode together. For any of you who argue with me that Ryan looks more like Joey than like Bekah, I rest my case!

Oh okay, one animal bum picture... but only because you asked. How could I resist this one - these zebras were asking for it. Two for the price of one!