zoo

it was a nice day at hogle zoo last saturday. some memories:

that baby elephant is too cute. i could sit and watch her (?) for hours. we stayed the longest at the elephant venue, for sure.

the kids could hardly focus on anything until they had ridden the train and carousel. baby tigers? meh. pet a soft snow leopard's pelt? yawn. see the gigantic rhinos? who cares, get us on the train. the baby giraffe gave momentary distraction (amazing that a "baby" is taller than my husband!), layla especially liked that, but it was one-track-minds until the rides were ridden.

is it just me, or does that train ride get lamer and lamer? either way, addie SCREAMED the whole ride. even safely on my lap, it freaked her out, poor thing. i mean, really, she was terrified. carson and layla, true to form, loved it. paul did a good job of faking excitement about seeing those same two bison that have been there probably since he was a kid.

the carousel is what it is. layla rode it for the first time in her life on her own animal; when paul told her at the beginning to make sure and "hold on tight," she did. i don't think the photos really capture the extent to which she was clutching the pole, squealing with half-delight, half-terror. total white-knuckler.

the lion drinking fountains were a hit.

cute baby elephant. layla made up a whole family story -- the baby was there with her mom, and the daddy elephant (who was in the other area) was off at work. i love how layla's mind works. she's cute.

there were a million people there, for some diabetes walk or something. a good cause, i'm sure, but it was quite crowded. annoyingly so, if i'm being honest, but that makes me sound selfish and tunnel-visioned. which i am, but i don't think i'm supposed to publicize that.

addie loved watching the penguins swim around. she's quite strong herself, and it took all i had to keep her from breaking free from my grip and jumping in with them. which would not have been good.

we somehow, somewhere, lost one of addie's cute pink converse shoes. i'm very sad about that. but my life has continued with vim and vigor since that fateful day, so say-la-vee and stuff.

i had run 20 miles that morning and was pretty stiff. but the walking around turned out to be a good thing -- i wasn't sore at all the next day. note to self: stop at the zoo after the ultra in a few weeks.

did i mention the baby elephant? too cute. a real-life "jungle book" character, but cuter. i overheard someone say that it weighed 320 pounds. that seemed like quite a lot based on her size from afar, but whatever.

carson LOVED that little fiberglass-pseudo-gopher-hole thing. he hung out there forever, poking his head up and down in different holes. i guess there were bats flying around in the entrance to it, and one flew into layla's head when she went to join carson. i wasn't there, but my heart goes out to her. ewwwww. bats are creepy, i don't care how old you are. layla was brave, though, and it didn't even phase her that much. i would've handled it much differently, and "mature" wouldn't have been one of the adjectives used.

none of the animals looked particularly happy. i'm trying not to be disturbed, especially when i got to see wild animal babies galore, but...i can't deny it. kinda sad. but happy, since they're so well taken care of. but sad because they're not "free." i don't know -- this argument, for me, could go either way.