Fall day at the Zoo

On the Wednesday before Halloween, we took a semi impromptu trip to the zoo. My friend Amy and I had been trying to get a trip together since August, but something always happened to put it off. We finally picked a day and just went for it. The kids look grumpy, but they were really excited about our little road trip to the zoo.
The kids and I enjoying the beautiful fall colors at the zoo. For some reason, I've only ever visited the zoo in the dead of summer when it's about 95 degrees. It was refreshing to go in jacket weather. Forget the real animal, Maura just wanted to take a photo with Nemo. The zoo was all decorated for Halloween and the kids kept recognizing their favorite characters.

I let Maura feed a giraffe again and she just loved it! That big head is a little intimidating, but she held her cup steady and enjoyed checking out that blue tongue. It's hard to tell from the photo, but this is the baby elephant. He was so cute, I could have watched him all day.

"What you talkin' about, Willis??" Liam was ready to defend his driving turf against his two rival drivers in the safari van. We came upon the cutest pile of sleeping meerkats. Never mind that they had cozy indoor quarters just feet away. I guess they just like to cuddle.

Tristan loved the gorillas, especially because we came upon them at feeding time and they were all out and active. He just looks so darn cute in this hat! On a whim, we decided to go in and feed the lorikeets. There weren't many people at the zoo that day and the lorikeet feeding area was completely empty except for us. I've never seen such bold birds in my life. Maura chose to hold the nectar and she instantly became a bird magnet. I was worried that she was going to freak out when the bird landed on her head, but she just giggled and thought it was so funny. The birds landed on all our heads. Tristan and Liam were not excited about that! Miss Amy helped Maura feed the birds because I was holding Tristan and shooing birds away from his head!

Amy, the bird whisperer. I think at one point in the afternoon, she had five birds roosting upon her. We were concerned about bird poop in the hair, but we all managed to avoid that lovely little bullet!

The birds licked every last drop of nectar from that little cup! I thought this photo was funny because Tristan is patting his head and saying "hat." The two times the birds landed on his head, he thought they were very unpleasant hats!

Our last stop at the zoo was the carousel, Maura's favorite. She was determined to ride the butterfly despite the fact that it didn't go up and down. She didn't care--it had to be the butterfly! Amy and Liam claimed the jaguar.
Tristan went for the more traditional horse choice. We had such a fun day at the zoo. I've never been to a zoo in late October before, but it was such a wonderful time to visit. No crowds, no hot weather and animals galore. Thanks, Amy and Liam, for treating us to our zoo trip!

By the way, it's been a long time since I posted, mostly because my blog refused to upload photos. When I looked into the problem, I realized that I had exceeded my blog quotient of photos. What??? Apparently, you can only download 1G of photos to your blog. He, he, maybe I do get a bit carried away with the photos sometime. Anwho, I bought more storage space, so I'm back in business! Has anyone else had a storage issue, or am I the only one out there with 1G of photos on their blog??