Sam had been begging to go to the zoo to "see the animals" for a few weeks, so we took a day not long ago and went. I'm such a nerd, I love the zoo. I always have. I would totally do the zoo camp and other things like that if they would allow adults to attend. (As a matter of fact, we saw a few camp groups while we were there, and I kinda wanted to follow them around a little.)
Shawn always laughs at me because I have a wealth of silly songs stored away in my brain. Most of them, I'm not entirely sure where they came from. That morning, as we were getting ready, I kept singing the zoo song.
We're going to the zoo, zoo, zoo.
How about you, you, you?
You can come too, too, too.
We're going to the zooooooooo!
It was pretty funny hearing the kids singing it at the top of their lungs.
I don't think I got any pictures of the polar bear, but that was a big hit. We stood and watched him dive and play for the longest time. He had a ball that he was playing with, and Sam loved watching him throw it into the water then dive down to get it. I have to admit, it was pretty fun just watching him play. We got to see him pretty up close and personal. They are such beautiful animals...
Not long after we got there, we got caught in a little rain shower sudden torrential downpour. Even though Sam REALLY enjoyed seeing all the animals, I'm pretty sure his favorite part was playing in the rain. Little boys...
And of course, every puddle we came up on, we had to split wide open.
While we were waiting out the rain, we got to watch a little demonstration at the tiger habitat. One thing that we learned is that some animals are completely solitary unless they are in a mating season. I've always felt a little bit sorry for the animals that are housed by themselves, but we learned that tigers live alone even in the wild. The caretaker told us they put a male in with this female and they nearly killed each other before they finally separated them.
She was purring or growling or whatever you call it while they were feeding her.
At some point along the way, Sydney figured out that Sam was walking while she was strapped into a stroller, and that just was not going to fly anymore. Monkey see, monkey do...
Sam really liked the gorilla room. One of them kept sitting and staring at him, which he thought was totally cool.
Since the last time we went to the Louisville Zoo, they have added these giant insect-statue things. They are scattered all over the park. Every time we would come up on one, Sam would stop and yell, "What's that?" We'd tell him it's a grasshopper or a beetle or whatever. Then he would ask, "Is he a nice grasshopper?" Every time, I would tell him that, yes, it was a nice bug. But I couldn't really tell him that when we got to the giant spider. I just gently suggested that we walk a little faster.
This won't make much sense to anyone except for the Western Kentucky crew, but when we saw this little guy, Sam insisted that it was Prissy. I thought that was pretty perceptive. They do have similar markings....
Before we went to the zoo, he kept saying he wanted to see the giraffes...
...but after we got there, he was pretty obsessed with the rhinos. We later made the connection that there is a Spiderman villain named Rhino. Eventually, it all comes back to Spiderman...
He really wanted to pet this guy.
We ended our day with a ride on the merry-go-round. Out of all the animals that the kids could ride on, what did they choose? The bench. For real. But hey...if they're smiling, why knock it?
