zoo trip

Last Friday I took my kids to the zoo. It was actually my sisters idea. She was watching our niece that day, and suggested we meet there in the morning. It was the day that the new baby elephant was to be debuted, and we wanted to be among the first to see her.
She informed me that the zoo opened at 9, but that we should try to get there around 8:30, to get good parking before too many people showed up.
The kids and I were running a little late, we didn't even have breakfast. I loaded the car while the kids slept, then I woke them, dressed them, and stuck them in the car. I had packed a lunch the day before, though. I put in sandwiches, pudding and applesauce, we weren't going to go hungry. We arrived at the zoo around 8:40, I could only see about 20 cars in the parking lot, then again my mind is trying to tell me there were a few more than that. Either way, it was not crowded, and we got a great spot that would be shady by the time we were leaving.
I called my sister to find out if she was there yet.
"Nope," she told me. "I'm still in bed." I felt a flash of frustration, but got over it quickly. It really wasn't a big deal, and she offered to bring us breakfast. She said she'd hurry and get things ready. Said she'd be there as quick as she could be and suggested we hang out at the playground while we waited.
We did just that. Conrad ran around and climbed on stuff, like the giant caterpillar, while Ellie and I watched.

Ellie was so tiny on this great big spider.

She had a blast sitting there.

Then, of course, I had to put her in the giant egg shell.

She loved it in there, probably for the echoing sound it made when her hands smacked the sides.

My silly hatchlings.

Conrad had a blast. But the playground only kept his attention for so long.

After running around for a while we walked on the bridge (as per Conrad's request) and saw the ducks, geese, pelicans and swans. After that we had an applesauce, went through the cave and saw the bats, then we moved on to the giant ball fountain that's just inside the main entry.

He splashed, jumped and had a good ol' time.

It wasn't much longer before we noticed auntie Mel and Lady B entering the zoo.

ELEPHANTS
It should come as no surprise that the first animals we went to see were the elephants. There was a new baby, for goodness sake! (It as also the last enclosure we visited before leaving.)

the birth announcement of the new baby elephant.

She was such a cute little thing. We stayed there for a while, snapping pictures and gushing about how lovely and cute and little (as compared to mama elephant) she was.

She mostly followed her mama around, but would occasionally do her own thing, to the delight of the public.

As we were leaving the mama started doing some business. The baby came right over and started playing in the puddle, before mom was even finished. There was even more after that, the baby started to play in the pile that was forming, again before mama was finished, resulting in her almost getting hit in the head by a falling chunk of poop. As I squealed, like the 5-year-old that I am, one of the zoo employees mentioned how its actually very good for the baby to play in and even eat some of the mama's poop, because it contains nutrients that are good for the baby. Cool, but mostly weird and gross.

TIGER
When we finally finished there we walked over to the Asian Highlands exhibit, to look at the big cats. More specifically, the tigers.

Papa tiger was pacing the crowd, his side rubbed right against the fence, if I had reached out I could have touched him. Of course, he then could have bitten me, so you see why I didn't try.
He was gorgeous.

Conrad only watched for so long before deciding to demonstrate his climbing abilities. That is, his ability to climb up. He was stuck after that.

After I got him down, Conrad insisted upon sitting on the bronze tiger. He thought it was the coolest thing.

Ellie was growling while she sat on the bronze tiger cub. My very own little tiger cub, she is.

Even as we were trying to move on he was running back, trying to climb on the thing.

We were trying to move past papa tiger, so we could go up and see the mama and her cubs, but as we passed the glass the tiger stood on his hind legs and scratched at the glass a moment, before dropping back down and pacing some more. That alone convinced me to stick around for a bit longer. I wanted to be right there, should he do it again.

I stood Ellie up to the glass, the tiger pacing back and forth, right on the other side. She watched him as he passed, she slapped the glass and yammered on about something. At one point, it seemed, she got a bit nervous by this great creature that kept on passing in front of her. She looked back at me with worried eyes, and a whimper in her voice. I got down nest to her and told her it was OK, after that she was fine again.

MAMA TIGER

The pictures are not very good, I apologize. My phone doesn't zoom (I can only crop it later,) so this is as good as it gets.
In the top picture one of the cubs wandered over to his mother and began nursing. In the second the mother is giving that same cub a bath, while the little guy kept eating.

It was funny because, when she was done cleaning him, mama tiger went to find the others, so she could bathe them. As she padded off the first cub looked around, sort of confused-like. You could tell he hadn't been ready to stop having his snack. He eventually wandered off to find her again, and that's how we left them.

GIRAFFES
It seemed we had a theme going on this particular visit to the zoo. We saw the baby elephant. We saw the baby tigers. Then we saw the baby giraffe.

This little one was also very cute. There's just something about baby things. He (she?) didn't walk around much, which was fine because (s)he was in a great spot for me to get semi-decent pictures with my cannot-zoom phone.

LUNCH TIME
The kids started getting antsy while we visited the giraffes, so we figured it was probably a good time to take a break for lunch. We drove our child-laden strollers to the zebra enclosure and broke out the grub. It was during our lunch that the kids demonstrated their zoo-like behavior. (This is also the part of the post where I show you too many pictures of my kids. Why? Because I can.)

Conrad made a huge mess with his PB & J. He was pulling the bread apart, dipping his finger in the insides and sucking it off.

Ellie would drop her cup,

and think it was funny

Then she would fake cry when I wouldn't give it back.

Once she had it again she drank from it, but she held it in her mouth funny.

I started to giggle at her, and she grinned, too.

This girl is a ham, and she knows it.

As I mentioned earlier, we stopped by to see the elephants one last time before we left. As you can see, the kids were ready to go, burned out from their early morning trip to the zoo, they were ready for naps.

It was a very fun morning at the zoo.

{Simply for the sake of letting you know, this is a picture of a picture. That is why the quality is not the best. Still, I thought it was a cute picture, and wanted to share.}