Sleeping tigers and butt-sniffing monkeys

Shouldn’t every weekend be a 4-day weekend? Thanks to Karen’s two consecutive weeks off we got to have a real visit with my family this past weekend for the first time since forever.  So we actually had a nice visit that was relaxing.  Oh, and I got to kick my brother-in-law’s butt on Wii Sports’ Boxing.

Monday morning came and before we drove home we decided to go to the zoo. We got there around 9:30, and remember all that talk you’ve heard about the animals being active in the morning? They lied.

Snow leopard? sleeping
Amur tiger? sleeping
African lion? sleeping
Amur leopard? sl- LOOK! He’s looking up! no, wait, sleeping

So I learned in this trip to the zoo that wild cats are no different than domesticated cats. Except that these can eat you.

The elephants, however, were impressive. At least to me they were. We saw them right at feeding time and they were enjoying their food. Isaac and Jonathan, upon seeing the largest land mammal in the world, were engrossed with the ducks swimming in the pond at the front of the habitat.

Jonathan’s other favorite was the colobus monkeys. They were excellent climbers and seemed to do all of their climbing in one sweeping motion. One of them wiped the butt of another with his index finger, then sniffed the finger.

My personal favorite was the Kodiak bear they had. He was sleeping too, but every so often would lift up his head, scratch, and go back to sleep. This tiny movement allowed us to make out his shape for certain, and gape at the sheer size of him. My God, he was huge. Isaac has been afraid of bears for a while, so he wouldn’t even look at them for too long.

Ben had more outside time this weekend than he’s had all year.  He loved it.  We even stuffed him into a high chair on my sister’s patio:

Thank you to Dawn and Dan for a great weekend.  You’re the best sister I’ve ever had.