The Zoo with Friends

The trio and I went to the zoo yesterday and met up with some friends from church. Two of the three ladies are in their last trimester of pregnancy, but not in their last two weeks which is why Kara stayed home. (She's getting rather sleep-deprived. The nurse prescribed Ambien. Seriously?)

So there I was at the zoo with the wild trio, four other preschoolers, two toddlers and three moms. We started at the preschooler music session. The other children enjoyed the singing and rhythm play, but my three were not impressed. I wandered over a short distance to see what on earth the zoo workers were crafting from an old fire hose. They were making a bear hammock!


Surprisingly enough, we made good time on the zoo paths for such a large group. Viva led the way. Sometimes she was too far ahead, but my remonstrations did not slow her down.


A good percent of the animals were prowling around their cages instead of sleeping. That always makes a zoo visit more interesting. The river otter was very playful. The yaks entertained us with a head butting contest. At first I thought they were being friendly and scratching each other's ears, but then it became a head butt followed by a stare down until the smaller male backed off.

The tigers were, of course, sleeping. It's very unusual for them to be active during zoo hours. Maybe one out of five visits? The snow leopard was awake for a while. One of the dahl sheep was making an awful noise. It sure didn't sound like a baaa to me. The black bears were pacing their cage. The polar bear was doing a very odd pace and stretch routine. The brown bears were awake, but not very active.


The kids enjoyed looking at the animals, but mostly they enjoyed running up and down the paths and climbing over, under, and on the rail fence. What could be more delightful?





We stopped at the petting zoo. Viva and Jake petted the goats. Bentley kept his distance from all the animals--he did not want to go into the enclosure, but I carried him in so he'd be near the rest of us.



Jake took the fox photo. I deleted his other photos because he insisted on taking a shot of me from the neck down (he liked my coat he said) and his other photos were of the chickens. Chickens are ugly. No chicken photos allowed on my blog post.


Our friends came prepared with a sack lunch, but we did not. The children had just eaten breakfast, so I didn't think about bringing food. Isn't bringing three children enough of a challenge?! We walked over to the zoo café and purchased some cookies and chocolate milk. I promise you that although the cookies were quite large, they were not as huge as the photo below implies. My camera angle is to blame.



As you might have noticed Bentley has a new...look...he's perfecting for the camera. Here it is again in my final group shot at the zoo.