A trip to the zoo

On Saturday, we went to the zoo. The idea entered my head during the day on Friday... the forecast was calling for such nice weather, and it seemed a shame to "waste" it. Plus our library has a free pass you can borrow that's good for up to 2 adults and 4 children--but it's first come, first serve. Luckily, I was able to get it on Friday night. I had Ari with me when I went to the library, and I made sure to grab a book that featured a lot of zoo-type animals. (She cracks me up when we go to the library--she'll just pull random books off the shelves and hand them to me. But at least she's interested in books, so I'm not complaining.) Once I had the pass, I told her what we were going to do the next day, and she was suitably psyched.

I grabbed a quick father-daughter picture right inside the entrance...



This display was right next to the condor. I like her little pose here...



The prairie dog exhibit was one of my favorites, and Ari's too, I think. They had a tunnel under the hill with several holes you could climb into a get a closer look at the prairie dogs. See Tony and Ari in that middle one?



We stopped by again later in the day, and here are me and Ari in the same hole. I'm amused at the obvious height difference between me and Tony. And for the record, I was even standing on my tiptoes in this picture (I had to, in order to see over the edge).



Close-up of some prairie dogs because they're just oh-so-cute...



They had a table set up where kids could do stamps of some animal footprints. Yeh, don't ask me what animals these are... I totally don't remember. But Ari got a kick out of doing this.



This zoo had several types of birds that were free to roam the premises, and Ari just loved that. She kept wanting to catch one. Here, she's following a pheasant.



OK, look at the difference here... picture with Daddy, Ari is smiling nicely...



Picture with Mommy... she's trying to strangle me. (Nah, I think she was just hugging me. I think...)



I love the smile on her face in this picture...



And here she is, following a free-range rooster...



I should have gotten a video of this... she was cooing at this duck (? goose? whatever) in the sweetest little voice...



Among the free-roaming birds were several peacocks, and this one put on a lovely display for us. I took a bunch of pictures, because it was so pretty, and I don't think I've ever seen a peacock do that in real life. (Don't worry, I won't show you all of them.)



OK, just one more...



I thought these 2 ocelots were so adorable...



You can't even see what Ari was looking at in this picture (a pygmy marmoset, if you're curious), but I just love the look on her face.



Near the bison exhibit, they had a small display with a bison skull and some patches of their summer and winter coat.



And then the lady manning the display table offered to take our picture. I think it came out pretty nice. It even features the bison (who we found out is named Dakota).



They had this giant hollow log the kids could climb into...



We spent probably about 3 hours roaming around the zoo. And once we left, she quickly conked out in the car. I think it's sweet the way she's clutching her library book here.



And that was our Saturday. Sunday was church as usual, then we spent the afternoon hanging out at a friend's house. It was just as sunny and warm as Saturday had been, plus a little more humid. But the kids (a total of 5 of them, all age 6 and under) played outside ALL DAY. They were sweaty and flushed, but still had so much energy. One of Ari's little friends has a quad, so they all got a chance to drive/ride it. (Ari just rode--but she loved it!) And when they weren't riding, they were playing elsewhere outside... and Kerry and I even took them all to the park, and they still kept going and going and going. Of course, by the time we got home, Ari was thoroughly wiped out, so the bedtime routine involved a lot of crying and whining and even screaming. But once I got her into bed, she pretty much went right to sleep.

And that was our weekend.