We're going to zoo, zoo, zoo...

Since we didn't make it to the National Zoo last weekend with the rest of the church families (thanks for the surprise bday visit again, Mrs. H!) we brought the girls to the zoo today. We were hoping Kayla would be really excited to see animals in real life, rather than looking at them in books and growling at the lions and tigers. She is quite good at naming lots of animals so we thought this would be a fun experience for her.

We saw lots of cool animals. Unfortunately, the tiger and lion were sitting pretty far back in their exhibits so Kayla didn't quite know where to look even though we tried pointing them out to her. After the great cats, we headed over to see the sea lions, where Kayla watched them leap out of the water to catch Frisbees and do other tricks. Then we headed over to the children's animal zoo where they had lots of farm animals. Kayla got to see goats, a donkey and cows in person.


I had packed sandwiches for lunch, so we ate on a bench and enjoyed the warm (and sunny, for once!) weather. Then, we were off again, making our way to see the pandas and elephants. On the way, we stopped by the small animal house, but Jocelyn was getting fussy so we didn't spend too much time in there. According to Kayla, the tamarins, lemurs and other small mammals were all "monkeys." Finally, we made it to the panda exhibit. There was one panda walking around outside. George overheard people saying it was Tian Tian, who is the daddy panda. Tian Tian delighted everyone by tumbling down the hill (wish I had gotten a photo or video of that). Kayla loved watching the panda.


Then we were off to hunt for the elephants. They are building a new elephant exhibit so they weren't where we expected them to be. Jocelyn and I sat down on a bench while George and Kayla checked out the elephants.

I asked Kayla how many elephants there were, and she said "two," even though George reported seeing three. These days, any time you ask Kayla "how many" her answer is TWO.

On our way out to the parking lot we stopped to get some Dippin Dots ice cream. Yummy on a humid day! While we were eating, an orangutan decided to use the zoo's "O Line," which is an orangutan transport system from exhibit to exhibit. The towers have a low-voltage current so the orangutans aren't likely to try to escape. It was pretty cool watching the orangutan swing across the cables. Kayla called the orangutan a "monkey" as well. Looking at these photos, the orangutan looks like a yeti or Bigfoot or something.


After all that walking, we fully expected Kayla to conk out in the car... but she didn't. And neither did Jocelyn, who cried the whole way home. Kayla didn't even nap when we got home. I passed out on the couch for an hour or so. It was a fun day and we hope to get a zoo membership when the girls are older so we can go to the zoo more often! There are so many more animals that we missed out on!