To the Zoo

I saw that the youngest polar bear at our zoo was celebrating her 3rd birthday on Friday, and I thought we'd go say Happy Birthday to her since she and Lewis are practically the same age (and, to be frank, we just needed to get out of the house!!). :) They had a party for her yesterday, but Lewis had plans with Jim and Sharon (they took him to a train event), so Friday, we went. The weather was a little cool and cloudy, so there were hardly any other people there. [I literally counted 20 people, plus about 5 staff members.] It was awesome.

First stop, the giraffes:

 

A terrifying glimpse into the future, with Lewis driving :)

This is the old VW van that reminds me of the ones in LOST...I'd never actually gotten in with him before, so it was fun (and terrifying to think that one day, he will drive...). :)

 Meerkats

They're relatively new to the zoo.

We spent the majority of our time (30-45 minutes) inside with the gorillas:

 Most were sleeping, but this female came down to say hi and sat with us the whole time we were there.

We went to the tiger exhibit and didn't see a tiger, but all of a sudden he/she came out from the inside enclosure and immediately went over to check out this box (the keepers had just put out food):

 

Chow Time

The box was empty, but there were chunks of food laying on the ground where it fell.

Finally, we reached Qannik, the polar bear, to wish her a happy birthday: 

She was swimming, so we went down below to watch her under the water. 

 

 

 

It was cool to watch her from below--she kept diving under to scrape at the rocks.

Smiling Sea Lion

Our last stop was to see the new jaguar, LeBron (named for LeBron James because they apparently share a birthplace--Akron, OH):

 

He was super handsome, but he also scared the crap out of Lewis and I with his roar! We were sitting on a bench about 20 feet away, chatting and having a snack, and he roared...I jumped off of the bench and Lewis had the dreaded-look-of-fear and started crying. He was not a fan--I had to hold his hand to walk by him, and even then he insisted we walk on the far side of the sidewalk. There have only been a few things that have really terrified him so far in life (the jaguar and a squawking cockatoo). We will know for next time to be ready for sudden roars! :)

This morning I was doing dishes (which I'm now actually quite thankful to be able to do...), and I saw some National Geographic wildlife action outside the window:

 

On the neighbor's swing set, there was a hawk feasting on some sort of rodent with a tail. Probably a mouse, guessing by the skinny tail. It was awesome.