uh...what?: Zoo-riffic Sunday

Yesterday Adam and I decided to take the kids to our local zoo. We packed a picnic lunch and headed out. Last year my sister bought us a membership to the zoo and we still had a handful of free passes to get in that weren't used. Lucky for us they had no expiration date. Whoohoo! I love saving cash. So we went inside and staked out a nice table with some shade. We ate our sandwiches, string cheese and Fritos. Then a few pictures with the Niabi Gorilla were taken. Some of The Warren's like to ham it up more than others, can you tell?

After that it was off to the train for a ride around the park. I've loved riding this train since I was a kid. This year, though, Niabi has a new train. I was happy to see, however, that it looks exactly the same only, well, new! The one thing though I think that was different about the train was the engine. I don't remember what the original engine looked like but I think this one is sleeker looking. Also in front of the car Emily and I rode in was a big car with no seats and there were straps and harnesses on the floor. This one was for people in wheelchairs. I can't believe I never realized that people in wheelchairs can't ride the train! Well, we can't say that anymore because they're all over it now! I thought that was pretty cool and obviously, a long time coming.

After the train we began our trek around the place. First we saw the elephants, Babe and Sophie. This picture is of Sophie.

After that was a dinosaur and then we fed the fish, ducks, swans and geese.

Adam loves, loves, LOVES monkeys, especially the miniature marmasets. They're about 6 inches tall or so and are black with a white mohawk. Our zoo used to have them and you could find them in the aviary with all of the birds. They were so cute. You could then head over to the primate display and see lots of different types of monkeys. One of the last times we went to the zoo last year we found no mini marmosets, and no other monkeys really except two kinds, the black and white colobus, and the gibbins. We asked once on our way out what happened to all of the other monkeys and some employee, who for some reason didn't seem to notice they were missing about 52 different type of primates, said, "Well, I don't know. Sometimes we trade animals. Maybe we traded them for the giraffes." (The zoo had just aquired a few giraffes like 2 weeks before this) That seemed outrageous to me. What kind of a zoo trades a few dozen monkey for three stupid giraffes??? It still honks me off everytime I go there. The monkeys are like the only animals in the zoo you can somewhat interact with. They actually DO something as opposed to just standing there staring, sleeping or eating. They swing from vines and hang upside down and scream monkey love songs at other monkeys. Guess what the giraffes do? They stand there, and sleep and eat and one giraffe is really rude and just stares at you. Here he is after Adam started making a ruckus and yelling at Blake for some Blake-like thing he was doing.

HELLO MRS. CRAVITZ!

Anyway, after feeding the pond creatures we headed to the gibbins display. First we checked out the gibbin behind the glass because he was sitting right there next to the glass. Then we realized he was "hooting" to the other gibbin so we went around to the outside so we could hear and see them more. The noise they were making to each other was really cool and soon Adam and the kids got in on the action. Well that just made them "hoot" louder. Then one gibbin wanted to check out the Warren's to see who was hooting. This guy got right in front of Emily and looked at her like this...

...and hooted back at her. It was funny. See? Way more interaction than we got from ANY OTHER animal. Stupid zoo and their trades. Let's trade off that big bear that just lays in his cage and never, ever comes out to play in his sprawling yard and pool! Or what about those sleeping camels?

So from there we headed to the petting zoo where the kids got to take advantage of the pony ride tickets their daddy bought for them as we came in. Blake rode on a pony named Little John. I know, right? "Can I get a YEAAAAAY! OOOOO-KAAAAAY!!"

Emily rode on "Snowflake". They had fun but the stopping so the ponies could poop was pretty disgusting. Blech!

We made our way into the rest of the petting zoo so the kids could get their hands slimed by a bunch of goats. All Blake could say was, "What a good boy! What a good boy!"

After the petting zoo came the African Walkabout where you can walk around with Emus and Wallabys. Also in there is the lorikeet landing where you walk amongst a ton of lorikeets flying around and you can buy a little cup of nectar and feed it to them. This is where I literally got crapped on by a lorikeet on a branch above my head. Luckily it wasn't TOO bad and luckily I didn't take another step forward 10 seconds later or else I would have gotten it again. Grody.

Then we rounded the corner and saw those nosey giraffes...