The Zoo

Did you have a good Father's Day? The boys went golfing so the girls went to the Zoo. Then we met at Grandma and Papa's house for a short visit.

At the Zoo, I was totally shocked to see the new entrance. Here is a shot of the outside of the new entrance as you are coming up the hill from the farm area. See the gift shop on the right? That's where the building used to end.
Here is a picture of the inside, looking towards that gift shop in the last photo. This area used to be all outdoors. Now it's all enclosed, it's really nice.

Another new thing at the Zoo - the flamingos are back. They've been gone for some time I guess, because Carolyn said she didn't remember ever seeing them.

Carolyn's favorite animal to see at the zoo are the Orangutans. They have a new addition, which made them even more interesting to watch - a one year old! The female at our zoo is the new foster mother of Mahal. He was very entertaining!


It looks like there will soon be new little peafowl running around the zoo. We saw a peacock guarding this nest of eggs while the peahen was feeding a short distance away.


Another one of our favorites at the zoo are the giraffes. Especially now that you can get so much closer to them in their new exhibit. They really are amazing close up!


My favorite is the cat house. I love the lions and tigers. The get fed around 3 pm, so the best time to visit is around 2:30 to 3. They are all very active and pacing around because they know it is chow time. These lions spotted their keeper (with empty food trays) in the midst of a large crowd of people and watched him until he was out of sight.

Make sure you visit the zoo if you are ever in town!

Labor Day Weekend

I hope you all had a pleasant Labor Day Weekend, without too much laboring!

On Saturday we went to the Bristol Renaissance Fair. The Fair "recreates a day in the life of Elizabethan England". I didn't get any pictures of the kids, but I did take the one below of some knights-in-training. I thought it was kind of funny that the little "knights" were wearing crocs!

On Monday, Carolyn and I took a trip to the Milwaukee County Zoo. We rode the zoomobile for the first time in a long time, since I had some free tickets.

Carolyn also fed the goats.
We said goodbye to the koalas that were visiting from the San Diego Zoo, they go home next week.
We also enjoyed the mooing of these heifers. I think they heard their zookeeper around the corner.

Mooing Heifers

We also visited the special exhibit. They had tanks of sharks and sting rays that you could pet. The sting rays kept doing laps around and around their tank. It was like watching Sting Ray Nascar.

Pet the Sting Rays

Giraffe Close Up

Our zoo recently expanded it's giraffe exhibit. The giraffes used to be behind a moat and you couldn't get very close to them. Now they have a new area where you can get right up next to them. You can even feed them from the platform you see in the background of the first picture. I have never seen the giraffes this close-up before. I think it took them a while to get used to being so close to us, so they wouldn't use the new area if there were a lot of people around. Well, they are definitely used to us now. We could have reached out and petted the one in the photos below, she was so close. I think she was eyeing a big clump of grass right in front of us. Very cool!!

First Zoo Visit of 2007

I'm glad my kids still enjoy the zoo. Sunday was a pretty nice day, a little cool, but sunny.



Jake was setting a bad example for all the little kids. Luckily no one else decided to try it...





Well, except for Carolyn.