The Zoo Revisited

We went to the zoo again on Monday to celebrate the end of summer. I'd really hoped that, since she had seemed to enjoy the last zoo trip, Evie would be enthusiastic about this trip. At first, it seemed that she was having a good time.

We dressed the baby in a cute outfit covered with little animals to match the zoo theme, and we slathered ourselves with sunblock. I was excited to focus on the monkeys this trip, but just minutes after we arrived at the monkey house, Evie had an accident. She'd soaked through her diaper, her clothes, and onto Todd's pants and then my shirt. We had to run to the nearest bathroom, holding her at arm's length the whole way, and change her into the same outfit she wore last time. Once the gigantic mess had finally been contained, it was time for the elephant demonstration.

Evie finally noticed the giant elephants, but she wasn't really that interested in them. After the demonstration ended we thought it would be fun to visit the lorikeets. I figured that Evie would be impressed by the brightly colored birds, but she barely even registered their presence. Todd and I decided that we were hungry, so we left the lorikeet building only a few minutes after we got there. In our search for food, we came across this fun sign, and we thought that it would be fun to see how far we could jump.

Todd was able to jump eight feet!

I was wearing flip-flops, so I couldn't jump as far without hurting my feet. I made it four feet. After my jump, we found out how far Evie can "jump":

We found a restaurant/cafe place that smelled great, so we stopped and got burgers. They were really pretty good! Evie mostly enjoyed her lunch too. While we ate, a peacock wandered around our table. Once our tummies were happier, we went back to Primate Panorama to look at the monkeys. There was a cute little black monkey that was playing quietly by himself while his partner wandered around the enclosure and passed quite close to us. Evie didn't notice him until the last minute, and was startled when she finally saw him. It happened so fast that we weren't able to get a picture. The golden lion tamarins bounded from branch to branch while shrews scuttled along the bottom of the same cage. Evie didn't even notice the brightly colored monkeys, but she was absolutely captivated by the shrews. She loved watching them run around; they were her favorite part of the trip!

Todd took Evie to the bathroom to change her again, while I waited in the gibbon exhibit. There were two: one white and one black. They played mostly out of sight behind their fence, but I managed to catch cute glimpses of them. When Evie came back, she was tired and grouchy. She started crying, and the black gibbon popped his head up over the fence to see what was making the noise. Then he swung over to the huge window and flashed me! I thought it was hilarious!
After the gibbons, we moved on to the orangutans. This one was sitting right next to the window, and she looked right into my eyes. Evie was falling asleep with her second bottle, so she didn't get to see the orangutan, but I took a picture of the two anyway.
The gorillas were right next to the orangutans, and there was a huge gorilla right next to the window in that exhibit too. Unfortunately, there were a bunch of people taking pictures of him, so I got a picture of his brother instead. When I turned back to get a picture of the first one, he'd gotten up and walked away.

The male mandrill was fast! So I got a picture of the female instead. I have to confess: I was really surprised that I couldn't find any chimps in the primate section of the zoo. Maybe they have them stashed away somewhere else?

This monkey was killing and/or eating this fuzzy thing, so I got a video of this somewhat disturbing sight.

By this time, Evie was zonked, and Todd and I were tired too. We left the zoo, and dropped by the grocery store on our way home. Of course, Evie woke up for that, and she was looking around at everything, so we tried sitting her up in the grocery cart seat. She's still slightly small to fit in the seat belt the correct way, but she had a great time sitting up and "helping" Mommy and Daddy shop. She was her usual charming self, and we got stopped twice so people could tell us what an adorable baby we have! Overall, we had a fun adventure on Monday.