The ZOO!
The weather is moving towards spring, so we took advantage of a beautiful Friday to get reacquainted with the zoo again. It has been a while, but we got a family membership for the next year and I suspect it will be well used.
We had to explain to Zora that putting out your hand to a goose is probably not a good idea. (there is a reason the phrase “getting goosed” was invented) She kept going up to the geese and telling them “Hi, my name is Zora.”, fully expecting them to answer.
She spent considerable time trying to convince us that it would be a good idea to take the sheep home with us.
Zane told us later that this was his favorite part of the Zoo. Each kid was given a quarter to put in the feeding machines. Zora chose to feed the sheep, Zane wanted to save his for the trip back out of the “Children’s Farm” area to feed the fish and swans. He got more than he bargined for when the food wasn’t enough for some hungry swans. (definitely related to the geese)
Our last stop was the Chimpanzee habitat. They were active and playing around and Zane was just facinated watching them and couldn’t be pulled away when I noticed one up next to the window. Zora noticed though, and stood and watched for a while. She kept saying “Hi”, and every time she said it, the Chimpanzee nodded back a “Hi” type nod. It was really neat.
When I took Zora and you took Zane at the Zoo the next week, she was very…VERY clear to leave the geese alone!!! And that is bamboo, and there are the penguins, etc, etc, but mostly, “Where is the playground???” We found it and she enjoyed playing there. When the tram came by, she wanted to go on that, so we sprinted to the next stop and got on. I don’t know if she was expecting a more exciting ride, but she could hardly wait to get off at the next stop. Then she wanted to go to the American farmyard. We did that, where she told me all the animals, and informed me that those (goats)were sheep, because goats lived in the forest. Next we went to the African farmyard. As we approached it, she saw one of the zoo employees w/ a lawn rake, raking the farm grounds. Zora came to a dead stop, looked at him and proclaimed, “LOOK, Oma, It’s NEW McDonald!!!” It was such a fun day!