I Am Thinking of an Animal

The last day that John was gone we went to the zoo with my family. It was fun to go there with so many of them, including my grandparents. They are so sweet. Both kids really liked the monkeys.

The kids really liked playing with their cousins. One of the best parts--having three older boys who wanted to push the stroller for me. 

My favorite part was the bird show. They invited kids to come down and dance. To my surprise my timid little Ellie wanted to go down there by herself and dance. She is in this picture towards the middle left getting some pretty good air on a jump. She is so funny. At first she started doing her graceful princess twirls, but after watching some other kids do more hip hop she was all about jumping and wiggling. So fun. 

Miriam LOVED the bird show. She was fascinated by all of the birds flying every which way. Birds are her favorite. She calls them "toot, toots." Maybe related to 'tweet, tweet'? Anyway, she was enthralled by all of the big and little birds. 

Ellie has recently learned the game, "I am thinking of an animal..." It is always so fun to hear her clues for you to guess her animals. For example, she said, "I am thinking of an animal with short legs." After several yes and no questions, where I learned it didn't live on a farm or in the jungle, I finally figured out that she was thinking of a bear. I guess short legs are relative, right? :) 

The green wagon is the coolest!

Miriam went through three pieces of cake. She kept dropping it or going after someone else's and dropping it. 

Ellie decided to live life on edge and get a drink out of a lion's mouth. Pretty cool, huh?

We liked seeing the giraffes sticking their long tongues in the holes in the sides of the bucket to eat.

My sweet grandpa has been all over the world and seen who knows how many different kind of animals in the wild. He says that giraffes are his favorite.  

One fun thing that I don't have any pictures of is that when we were leaving there were a group of handicapped kids that came to the zoo. (We were late leaving.) There were a whole bunch of people who dressed up in character costumes for the kids. We saw batman, a ton of star war's characters, and the best...princesses!!!! We saw Jasmine, Belle, and Rapunzel. (I think.) Ellie was terrified at seeing Chewbacca and the Snow Monster. But Jasmine made her feel better because, "Jasmine is so fancy with all of her jewels." :)