We had Genni's blessing the Sunday after General Conference in October, and both my parents and Robbie's were able to come. We thought that since they were both there the Saturday before, a fun thing to do with them would be to go to the Abilene Zoo. It's not a very big zoo, but the girls love it, especially a few special things there. Here are just a couple pictures from our visit there.
We took a picture of the girls next to the sign right inside the zoo. They really wanted to ride the train you can see off to the right that goes all around the zoo, but we decided to walk instead.
In one of the animal houses they have a room with local birds in it. Georgia was standing next to the railing and didn't even notice this bird was right behind her. She was tickled when we showed her the bird.
Robbie loves Chameleons. He spent a lot of time around them while on his mission in Madagascar. He's even talked about getting one as a pet someday, and I don't think Georgia would mind that either. After all, her favorite Disney princess has a pet chameleon named Pascal, so why shouldn't she have one too?
We saw this local turtle while walking along one of the pathways through the zoo. We left him along though so he could continue on his journey.
One of the parts that Gracie really liked was the rattlesnake. It was wide awake, and for some reason it was following her finger around, back and forth across the glass. She thought it was super cool...some of us thought it was kind of creepy.
Gwen laughed hysterically when she saw this monkey sun bathing. Every now and then you could see him peek an eye open and look around at what was going on, then go back to sleeping in the sun.
One of the girls favorite parts of the zoo is feeding the fish in the lake they have there. The fish are so used to being fed that they all come up to the surface like this and fight for the little food pellets that people throw to them. It's quite a sight to see. Even the ducks and swans get in on it. When we first took the girls to the zoo, we went with some friends from our ward, and they said that when they had first come to the zoo, the ducks were just walking on the backs of the fish to get the food pellets because there were so many fish on the surface of the water that there was no room for the ducks to swim. It's a lot of fun to watch.
Their other favorite part is feeding the giraffes. If you get to the zoo first thing in the morning, you can buy tokens that allow you to get special crackers from a cart that is on a bridge that spans the giraffe enclosure. You can stick the crackers through the fence, and the two giraffes will use their tongue to grab them from your hand.
It's an interesting feeling having your hand licked by a giant giraffe tongue. It's a lot of fun to feed them and get that close to something that you normally wouldn't get the chance to.
You really are quite close to them on the bridge, and if you drop your cracker onto the ledge on the other side of the fence, the giraffes use their tongues to drag it to the edge so they can eat it.
We always have fun at the zoo, and this time it made it even more special for the girls because they got to do it with their grandparents. We always look forward to trips to the zoo!!
