The Speed of Kids

I have often noticed that as fast as my camera could possibly close it's aperture, my kids seem to be able to move faster. Nowhere is this more obvious than when we are at the zoo. It's like they have little sensors in their brains that see my finger begin to move to take the picture and they wince, grimace or jerk so that the picture is ruined. I have figured out a way to catch them unawares however.....from BEHIND! I got some cute pics of both kids, sitting nicely with their friends who went to the zoo with us, and all of the clear ones were of the backs of their heads. Oh well, I'll take what I can get. Luckily, my friend M has a little baby M who isn't big enough to have learned the jerk & jive maneuver yet so I got some cute pictures of her.

A Bunch of Wild Animals

Monday was SUCH a hot day at the zoo and with the summer crowds it was even rougher to navigate the million acres of animals, but somehow we managed to have a good time. The best was that around 5PM everyone seemed to evacuate like the place was on fire and by the mid-evening we had the place essentially to ourselves and it cooled down to about 85 degrees. We even managed to get a glimpse of the new 5 month old baby panda. My favorite part was finally getting to see the big cats in action though. Around 6:30 or 7ish the lions, jaguar, panther, cheetah and other felines woke up and began to pace around their cages. It was VERY cool to see. Here's some of our highlights:

Another Zoo Day

Well, we visited again, and to spare you the slideshow of all of the cute pictures we got of the kids and animals (since I think we've done several in the past), I'll just show you this one pic of them with Grammy and Grandpa that we got on the turtle statue. It was a perfect day for the zoo and we had a wonderful time visiting with our family from up North.

More Fun At the Zoo

Recently, my darling children and I took their Nana on a morning trip to the zoo. Having annual passes is awesome for short day trips and lower stress levels. We heard that the polar bear exhibit had been updated and wanted to check it out for ourselves. The place was packed but we got to see zookeepers feed fist-sized meatballs to the tigers and watch the hippos party in the waterfalls and be more active than we'd ever seen them. Who knew Hippos went nuts like that for a little water massage? It was pretty cool. Note to self though: the zoo is pretty busy on weekends, it's best to go during the week when there are much smaller crowds.

San Diego Zoo Lights

On Saturday we too the trek down to San Diego in the afternoon to see the lights at the zoo. There were all sorts of neat Christmas light displays and we got to ride the tour bus and skytram, had dinner, saw a bell choir, watched ice sculpting, and saw LOADS of animals. It was neat to be there that time of night because several animals (like the big cats) who are normally docile during the day were up and about in the evening. The tiger in particular was very vocal and the hippos were swimming laps around their pool. We renewed our membership so whenever you all come to visit, be sure to take the trip down there with us. It's a great way to spend the day (or night!).

It's a zoo in there

Today I specifically planned to stay home and do NOTHING...well, not nothing, but rather, nothing that wasn't kid oriented. So we started the day by cleaning the toy room and vacuuming so that we could spend the rest of the morning playing with their toys together. We built a lincoln log tower, played with their baby dolls, made some make-believe brunch in their pots & pans, but the highlight of the mornings was building a zoo out of megablocks:
They just soak in the time that I can devote entirely to them and not to running errands or cleaning things or dealing with a client. I love days when all I have to do is be a mom. Being a mom is the BEST.