It's A Real Zoo Out There =)

I am seriously falling behind the times, seems like I'm always playing catch-up from the weekend before.... well two weekends ago we went to the zoo to see an important creature that will shown later. Here's the first animal we came upon: A Big Horn Sheep.

Then, much to Syrena's delight, it was the tiger and her three new cubs. Here's momma:

And here's the three babies chilling out in the bushes:

Daddy (who is not kept in the same enclosure since he'd snack on his children)

Baby Giraffe:

They've got this program going on called "Enrichment" which is really cool - in each enclosure (well, most of them anyway) they give the animals something to do, food in a weird container they have to figure out or a new toy, just something to keep their brains active. I could really tell a difference with the animals. I've been a zoo-goer for years now and seen them all just lying there apathetically, that was not the case this time. They gave the giraffes lettuces in a water jug, you can see him excitedly reaching for it - check out how long that tongue is!

Cheetah:

Snow leopard and her baby, lots of babies this time around, it was cool.

another view of them:

The sloth:

Baby skunk, I want one so bad...

I totally don't remember what these things were called but they were weird! We all thought they were stuffed, they stood there so still but then one of them blinked and moved a little, it was almost scary.

Meerkat, always adorable.

The wolf. Like I said before, I've been going to the zoo forever and prior to this trip, had only seen the wolf once or twice as it dashed past. We timed it so we got over there during her enrichment and got to see her for awhile, tearing things apart and curiously checking things out. It was really awesome.

Owl, Syrena's on a Harry Potter kick right now so she's all about the owls....

Bat-eared fox, how cute!

Porcupines:

The wolf again... my pictures must have gotten all out of order.

Penguins - they were swimming and you never see them doing that. The kids were totally loving that.

Bears, Eric's favorite creature.

They had big ice cubes that they were licking, maybe with something frozen in the middle, I'm not sure but it was cool to watch.

Zebras, someone in the family loves them but I can't remember who.

Stray peacock, it totally thought I couldn't see it with its amazing display of camouflage.

The keeper and a Macaw:

Rhinos:

The elephant, she had a watermelon that she was thoroughly enjoying stomping. There is a baby, but she and mom are currently not out because they are bonding. I think they are supposed to be brought out this week or next week.

Okay, here we come to the whole reason we went. To see some super great creature from Madagascar.. that's right it's: Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches!

Oh maybe that's not right, maybe it's... the Fossa! They spell their name differently from my Foosa, but that's only because I didn't know you spelled Fossa that way. Anyway, here's the creatures my precious is named after:

Playtime!

Man, they really need to make the crocodile exhibit a little safer. The doctors aren't sure if they can reattach Syrena's leg....

Everyone had to drink from the Lion's head before we left:

We were inspired by the zoo's displays of "enrichment" so when we fed the dogs the next morning we made them work for it a bit:

Then it got stuck on Nanuk's face.....

Rio Tinto Monster Trucks

Two weekends ago... I'm starting to fall behind again - anyway, we took the kids to the Monster Trucks. Tommy loves them and here's his favorite: Gravedigger.

Blue Thunder

My husband :) and our daughter:

My little man with his hearing protection - when we first got him these, he wanted to wear them all the time. In fact, all through school he's a had a pair at school, we're trying out this year without them. He's only been in school for a week, but so far so good.

ATVs

I liked Rio Tinto a lot, there was a lot of space for them to really race and do tricks - although the Rocky Mountain Raceway is still better, but then again, Rio Tinto is much more conveniently located.

During the event, Tommy suddenly started screaming at me "It bit me!!" and freaking out, apparently he felt something land on his head so he smacked it thinking it was a fly or mosquito and it was a stinging insect of some kind- I didn't see it, so I don't know if it was a bee, wasp or hornet. Poor little guy, his first sting. It wasn't too bad, I took him down and although it was really hard to track down some ice cubes, we finally did. It didn't swell much, in fact, with my crappy camera, you can barely even see it:

On Wednesday night, I had dinner with my good friend Ashlee B. I just realized I never wrote about the horror. A few weeks ago ITS had to do layoffs again and all my girls got cut :( It was a day of infamy for sure, I was heartbroken. All my lunch/break buddies are gone in one foul swoop. Now we have to work hard to not lose touch! So Ashlee and I went to dinner and then to my place to make some catnip brownies. We have a ton of catnip growing in our backyard, so we thought we'd try it out. It tastes really awful, that's about all I can say.

Here's her little Molly playing with Peanut.

Gee, and it looks so yummy....