"Spring" Zoo Day!

I know a lot of you are still experiencing snow and cold, but here in SC, we're wearing flip flops and everything is in bloom and we are taking trips to the zoo before it get to hot to stand being outdoors... haha! Daddy had a long weekend off last/this week, and so we went to the zoo on Monday :)!

First zoo picture of the year! Mama was watching this picture being taken, and she let us know, "From now on, it's age order or stair steps." We can't do both anymore!

First we went to see the seals, and we spent quite some time there, as we waited and stuck around for the feeding, as well. One of the employees brought out a piece of seal skin for everybody to touch. I declined, but some of my siblings let us know that it felt like... Daddy's hair. Interesting. Haha! It *was* more furry than it looks when it's wet.

The sea lions were taken out for years, they wanted to great a more friendly habitat for them. Now they have an indoor viewing and a outdoor viewing and an over head viewing, and a seal added to the mix! The feedings don't include as many "tricks" as they did formerly; I think that might be partly because most of the sea lions and the seal are new to captivity, being rescue animals.

I don't usually share Daddy's pictures that don't have people in them, because I never know what he wants to do with them, but I had to share this one. It really looks like this seal is smiling for the camera, haha! Actually, though, he was grunting like a little pig ;).

Watching the feeding :).

The gorillas were being civilized for once... most of them were sleeping. Ha! They have really gross feet.... *ugh* But Noah liked this one.

<3 He's so cute.

They always have to climb to orangutan statue...

Peter wouldn't go into the bird exhibit for... reasons ;)... but Josiah wanted to go and did wonderful with it! I don't know if it's because he knew what to expect this time or if it's just he's older or we have birds now, but he held his cup the whole time and didn't scream, even though they were EVERYwhere that day. Mama was told that the animals are crazy on Monday, because they are expecting to be fed as much as they were on the weekend, and they aren't because very few people are there. Poor things, haha!

I mean, look at all those, haha! Mama was holding Noah and the cup, and she had soooooo many birds on her. I expected Noah to be scared no matter if he likes birds or not, but he wasn't!

For just a little more, you can upgrade your membership and get free rides, food to feed the animals, etc, for the year. So the merry-go-round has been a new attraction to all the little ones :). Noah wouldn't sit on an animal, but I held him on a seat and he seemed to enjoy it. Then we played "Poohsticks" over the bridge, because Josiah was disappointed when the merry-go-ride was done, and Josiah won!

He liked the slide more, though ;).

Emmi-Lou Who <3. Peter told us he wanted to see the penguins... asked over and over. When we got there, we discovered he wanted to climb in the fake tree in the exhibit, haha! The toucan flew (something it never does, haha... it usually just sits, like the koala bears ;)), and impressed Daddy with it's wingspan! Our zoo is one of the leading zoos for raising toucans, which is neat, but I have never seen a baby. It's sad, haha! They had baby shark pups last year, but I didn't recognize any of them either. They also got a couple more lions, which makes me feels better, because the one left was so sad alone...

Josiah's favorite part was the outlet plugs in the sea lion indoor viewing... haha! And Abbi wanted to know when the Naked Mole Rats were going to get clothes... they are really nasty looking, y'all, but the other something they had in the same exhibit (it had fur, I don't remember what it was) was running through the "hamster tunnels" and ran into another, and ran back OUT the tube backwards, and it was hilarious... it didn't really run, it like, quickly hopped... or something. It was humorous!

We left right at closing time, and as we got everybody buckled into car seats, Josiah told Tori, "That was nice, and that was good." That's high praise from that little man ;). We picked up some pizza on the way home and everybody tried to get Noah to talk about the zoo ;). Mama asked him that night if he saw the giraffe, the zebra, the birds, the fish. He answered yes to each, then squinched up his little eyes and thought for a minute, and Mama mentioned he was trying to think of another animal, but couldn't remember the name, and then he shouted something... it took us a few times of him repeating it before Bethi realized he was saying animals, Mama must have jogged his memory :). The day was nice, and it was good ;).

Rejoicing in Hope,
Bri