Day at the Zoo

I had wanted to take the kids to the zoo over March break, but I also wanted to avoid all the crowds of March break… so we opted to wait a week, and we went today and bought our family pass. Jeddy had never been to the zoo before, and kept insisting that he wanted to go “see the monkeys!”

 

We had never seen the polar bear exhibit before, so we headed there first. We were all fascinated by these polar bears just lying on the hill top, when all of a sudden, they started to make this noise. It sounded like an eerie howling noise. The girls looked at me and said, “Mom, I didn’t know Polar bears made that noise.” Meanwhile, I’m thinking to myself, “Polar bears don’t make that noise…” Turns out we were looking at the Arctic wolf exhibit. Polar bears were around the corner… I guess that’s what I get for making fun of my sister! But seriously, when they were lying down, all we could see was white fur! Anyhow, I’ve never seen 8 wolves sit there and howl together. It was pretty incredible.

 

Then we made it to the polar bears.

For real…

As we were standing there watching them, Jeddy kept grabbing my leg, like he was nervous or something. I looked down and said, “What is your problem!?” “What’s wrong, hun?”

He looks behind me and says, “I”m scared of the geese!”

Yup. Not the bears… the geese.

 

The only reason Elijah came to the zoo (in his words. As if he really had a choice.) was to see the Komodo Dragon.

 

He is intrigued by any type of “scary” animal. He informed me yesterday that more people die every year from bee stings, than from shark attacks.

“I learned that in my ‘Predators’ book.” he says…

I warned the kids when we left  our house, that we would only be making one bathroom stop at the zoo. The bathrooms are very few and far between… and that one bathroom stop would be after we ate lunch. My kids are smart… I didn’t even catch on to why they wanted to stop and eat lunch so early! ha… Smart or manipulative… Either way, we ate lunch with the jellyfish.

The girls are so content. They were just happy to be at the zoo. Happy to see any and every animal. The boys had a mission. After the Komodo Dragon- all I heard was, “Where are the lions? The tigers? The cheetahs?” They weren’t impressed by the cute little snowy owl, or the adorable little baby gorilla…

or the elephants. Slightly more by “Master Shifu”…

  

But this… this was amusing….

Ella wasn’t so fond of the giant orangutan statue.

So we had to do the picture without her…

  We saw the cheetah…

 

And the tiger…

And finally we made it back to the lions!

The male lion got up just as we arrived, and stretch and did a growling yawn. Not an angry roar… just a little one. Then as he left, he stopped and posed for the camera.

We followed him over to the other side, and across the exhibit from us there was a rowdy group of teenage boys. As the lion walked over, they started yelling at it, and banging the polls… bad idea. The lion stood there and roared AT THEM about 10 times. I turned to the kids and said, “THAT was an angry roar…”

Stupid kids, but quite the sound to hear. Unbelievably powerful. It actually made me wonder what the voice of God must sound like. I mean, the lion’s roar made the ground rumble…

 

Then the kids stopped taunting it, and this huge beast rolled around on the ground like a playful little kitten.

At this point the boys were satisfied, and the girls and I were all starting to get cold and tired, so we decided to head out. Elijah offered to push the stroller for me.

And the girls figured huddling would keep them warmer.

   I must have been asked, “Are they triplets?!” atleast 10 times today.

Maybe more…

 

I should have gotten a picture of Keona protecting Jeddy from the geese.

Keona, who screams and runs while flailing her arms and legs for 300 meters when she sees a mosquito, was protecting Jeddy –

from geese…