Zoo Day

Spring Break started off rainy (like Noah's Ark) and stayed gloomy for a while. We really wanted to do something fun with the girls while Sarah Grace was out of school so Adam took Friday off and we went to the zoo. There were storms in the forecast but we forged on. The whole family went, except for poor Jonathan who had to work. It turned out to be a perfect day. The threat of storms held off the crowds and we walked right up to everything and didn't wait for anything. It was cool but not cold and towards the end of the day the sun actually came out.It was all the kids', but Sarah Grace, first times at the zoo. They loved it. Charlotte would have been fine staying at the park entrance all day. They had a bubble blower that continually blew bubbles and all she wanted to do was chase them. We convinced her to leave them long enough for a pic with a couple of characters (you can tell she is still watching the bubbles). Meanwhile my dad was IN the flamingo enclosure and be converged on by park employees. He wanted THE perfect pictures of the girls watching the birds... He got one.

After Dad climbed out of the exhibit, we went to the Parakeet Adventure. It's an open-air enclosure with 100's of parakeets flying around. They take you in in groups and you can buy feed sticks to feed them with. It takes a bit of patience to get them to come to your stick, because there are 50 other sticks being waved around and 500 that came before those. But Sarah Grace wanted to wait. I think the rest of us were ready hand our sticks to the next person and call it an "experience" when she got 2 to feed off of hers. She was so excited, they fed for a minute or two and then started fighting over it and she got scared and dropped it. The other girls tried, for maybe 15 seconds each, and had no luck. I don't know that I would want to come eat from a 2 year old yelling "BIRDIE, COME MERE!!!" if I was a parakeet either.After the birds we saw the elephants, tigers, monkeys and some big ugly birds. The girls all liked watching and really paid attention to each one, as much as they could for their ages... Then we went to see the lions. My personal favorite of the day. They were so much fun to watch. There were 3 cubs (teenagers) and one adult male. The cubs played together for the longest time and really put on a show. Eventually the dad came down from his rock he'd been watching from and joined in. When the younger ones saw him coming they all flocked to him. They jumped and pawed at him and he played back. It was so cool to watch! There was a huge crowd and everyone kept going back and forth from one part of the enclosure to the other to see what they were going to do next. We had to drag the girls to the next animal.The next stop was the gorillas. When we first got there not much was going on, but stayed a few minutes and they all came out and put on a show for us. A large silver back came down the hill, out of nowhere, and all of a sudden 4 little bitty ones lined up behind him in a train (hands on each others shoulders) and followed him down to the viewing window. It looked like a Conga line. :) It was precious!!! They were so little. Eventually some of the moms came down too and they all dispersed to their moms while the male sat and watched. The girls thought it was funny to walk like the gorillas for the rest of the day.

After lunch (really good pizza) we did the reptile house, zebras, orangutans, pandas (we saw one of the babies), and petting zoo (the girls all liked to brush the goats). The orangutan was ENORMOUS, bigger than any of the gorillas. The pics don't do him justice! You'd have to see him for yourself. We were lucky enough to see him get up and climb around and it was AMAZING! HUGE!!! There was also a tiny one that liked to swing upside down from a rope while eating a snack. We ended the day with some free time on the playground and snacks. It didn't start raining until we got home. :)