Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Zoo Post = Too Many Pictures

Ok, so for those of you who have not followed our blog for very long, or don't know Steve and I (ok, mostly me) you can prepare for far too many pictures where this is about our visit to a zoo. For everyone else, you already came prepared. I promise I really did only choose pictures that we really liked or went with a story - or, of course, have Ellie in them. But I promise you won't even see all of those. It should simply be enough to say we went to a zoo, and between the two of us took over 250 pictures and videos in just a few hours, so be grateful I tried to eliminate a few! Moving on.

On April 1st Steve, Ellie, and I went to Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City, UT with Aunt Kathy, her daughter Amanda, and Grandpa and Grandma Bennett. It ended up being unbelievably nice and sunny weather. I even got sunburned! Shocker, I know. Anyway, it was a really fun day and we got to see lots of fun animals - a few of which you will get to see now too!

Um, I have no idea how to organize these photos, so we'll see how this goes. Let's start with... birds? (first animal picture in my line of photos currently)

Isn't he amazing? He was so neat looking I had to share!
Another bird I just thought was really neat.
Who ever thought that vulture and beautiful would be used in the same sentence? Ok, he's not beautiful, but the colors on him sure are.
The peacock was not at all happy with the turkey, and chose to tell him so with us and a lot of other people there to witness the spat.
Steve thinks wood ducks are gorgeous, and they are. So here you go.
Here is a picture of Ellie and Kathy watching two geese intently at the beginning of the zoo. What can I say? Our girl loves her exotic animals....
We also got a number of great pictures of primates while we were there. Enjoy!

This guy's hair reminded me of a who from Dr. Seuss or some modern emo guy...
Look! A baby! That part of me will probably never go away....
This smiling capuchin made us all jump and then laugh as he jumped off the glass full speed right at Steve when Steve tried to take his picture. This was him smiling and posing after that little display of mischief. After all, he is a monkey, and a capuchin at that....
Gorillas strike me as such amazing, imposing animals.
That is, until you see one sucking his fingers. Softens him a bit, don't you think? Admittedly, there is something funny about this picture, but also something sad about a grown animal sucking it's fingers in such a human action of comforting oneself.
Speaking of gorillas, Ellie is apparently somewhere between an infant and adolescent gorilla in size. Good information to have on hand.

Kitties! Enough said...

Steve took this AWESOME picture! It was neat because the tigers had a big enclosure, and then they had a walkway that went over your head where they all lounged.

I don't know why, but I really liked this sand cat. So cute!

And now some pictures of random animals:

This picture really was that close, no zoom needed as the giraffe decided to come check out a small group of people, myself included, and get withing about 10 feet of us all.

So I know this isn't a great picture, but it has a story. First, these tortoises are HUGE! nothing to compare them to in size in the picture, but believe me. Second, if you look under the closest tortoise, you see another, much smaller tortoise. We initially believed it was another BABY! moment, but then watched a worker come and start slapping the larger tortoise repeatedly on the shell till he moved - it's not like she could move him... Turned out it wasn't a baby, just a (still rather large) tortoise that unfortunately got sat on by a much larger neighbor. The worker brushed off the little guy and told us all he was fine and that this sometimes happens... Talk about a jerk neighbor to live with...
Kangaroo. That's all.
Rhino. Again, no story here.
Another baby! It was fun watching him play and hang out with mama.
And now, the pictures that you're all actually interested in. Here's proof that we did in fact go with other people. Everyone but us I think took turns with the stroller. Here's Grandma and Grandpa Bennett with Daddy and Ellie. This is the only picture they're in I think... Don't just blame me, Steve took pictures too and he didn't get any of people, so I don't feel as guilty.
Ellie really liked the map. I think she's beginning to like paper.
So, Kathy rented a wagon because Amanda was getting tired fairly early on into the zoo. I don't know what she spent (I'm sure it was crazy - we were at the zoo) but it ended up being totally worth it. Partially because these are some of the best pictures of Ellie and Amanda...
And partially because it allowed Ellie to lay out. She even got to take naps this way once we covered her face with her hat (she does NOT like bright sunlight in her eyes but won't keep her sunglasses on). Amanda was really great about helping Ellie rest and not waking her up.
She only cat napped, but her mood was much improved!
This is definitely a Grandma Jan picture for me. I can say that since I've had a couple of people tell me I wasn't crazy in the twirling pictures that she looks a bit like Jan.
Yeah, Kathy and Amanda enjoyed their Ellie time (I hope!) and Ellie LOVED her time family! She loves people so much, and I think she gets bored with me and decides she's being neglected. She didn't have the chance to feel left out while we visited family! Everyone was so great with her.Ellie also LOVED Amanda's hat. She swiped it a number of times...
Too bad this girl isn't loved... What a lucky girl!

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