monkeys, rhinos and zebras, oh my!

We went to the zoo! In the summer! And we didn't die of heatstroke! Today is so nice - it's 2pm and like 75 outside, I think. It is sprinkling once in awhile, and you can't see the mountains because there are low clouds in the way. LOVE IT.

The zoo was fun. Kate is getting better about actually seeing the animals, I think. It is kind of hard to tell, but sometimes she'll look in their general direction and smile. She had a bottle before we went, along with some sweet potatoes, and I stopped at Sonic for a burger and tater tots (mmmm...tater tots, love those cravings!), so we were pretty good to go. I brought Cheerios and freeze-dried fruit for her to munch on, and we hit the road. Dana and Eric met us there, and we started at the monkeys. Those are kind of hard to see unless they are moving, because they are dark and have a pretty dark background, but Kate saw them and watched them swing for a few minutes.

Hi, giraffe!

Ooh, birdies.

Rhino!

Then Daddy's airplane flew over, and both kids saw that! The zoo is right in the landing pattern for the DM runway, so it was perfect - I think that was the first time Kate has actually seen what I'm talking about when I say, "Look, Daddy's airplane!" She usually gives me a weird look like Mom, Daddy is not here, what are you talking about? So we went to the zoo and saw airplanes. We also saw the giraffes eating trees, otters swimming in the water, and rhinos walking around. If they weren't moving, she wasn't interested.

They were both worn out after about an hour and a half, which was good, because so were we. We were walking back to our cars, talking, and mid-sentence I cut Dana off: "They are so not using my car as a picnic table." But, they were. A group of about 12 adults (adults!) and children were just 'cleaning' up their picnic from the trunk of my car (I'm sorry if your SUV is too big to use as a table, but that does not really make it okay for you to use my car as a feasting surface). They did a crappy job of cleaning up, too, leaving a smear of mayonaise (GROSS) and their receipt tucked under the fin on the trunk. What the hell? No, I did not say anything because they were several feet away from the car by the time I got there and really, what would it have accomplished at that point. I needed Julie - she would have come up with some snappy response that would have made them think twice about doing that again. Alas, I wiped up the mayo with the receipt and stood there speechless as Dana wondered aloud where people's manners are these days.