A Great Day at the Zoo (Pre-Drama)

On Friday Koen had the day off from school.  I was unsure if Doug would be around on this, his regular day off (he's been working a lot lately), so I planned a zoo date with Deborah and her kids.  Koen and Miles hadn't seen much of each other since the summer and neither had Deborah and I, so we were all looking forward to it.  Doug was actually able to take a few hours that morning to hang out with us and it ended up being a fabulous family and friend day at the zoo.  This was actually Penn's first visit to the zoo and he loved it.  He loves animals right now and enjoys mimicking their sounds and is enraptured by their movements.  He spent much of the morning taking it all in from the backpack with Doug.  In the elevator he looks skeptical...

Searching for the snow leaopard with the big kids...

Watching the very active red panda...

Strolling along with Daddy...

Checking out the elephants with Tav and Claire...

Koen and Tavin were so happy to be at the zoo.  Miles and Koen were palling around using their zoo maps to navigate our path.  Tav was using his map to just get us to the elephants, "his favorite."  Everyone just seemed in such great spirits.  It was a gorgeous Fall day and so nice to be outside, to be together and to be enjoying such a fun, beautiful place.

The animals were really active and engaging on this day which made it all even more fun.  Here's Tav and Penn with Doug checking out the lioness relaxing in the grass.  Later we heard her roaring like crazy for her lunch.

This gorgeous leopard was right next to the glass viewing area.  Look at those cute, big paws and the beautiful coat!

While looking up at the other leopard farther up inside the enclosure we all the sudden saw another visitor peek through the trees.  Hello Mr. Giraffe!

The gazelles were prancing around so happily.  It was very entertaining.  We left just as some mating began.  Good thing we got the 6 year olds out of there in the nick of time.  Phew!

Ah, the elephants.  Tav's favorite. =)

The gorillas were relaxing right up near the glass.  The one at the bottom of the picture was being hilarious.  I wish I had caught more of his funny poses.

The seals were super interactive.  I felt like I was living out my childhood dream of being a Sea World employee.

Look how they were "chatting" with Deborah.

Around this time Doug took Tav to his speech therapy appointment at Children's Hopsital (little did we know we would all be there later in the day yet again).  Deborah and I took the remainder of our brood to the playground area to kill the time while Tav was away.  They loved playing there.  Here are the big buddies.

And the little ones.

Penn was getting pretty cranky as he usually does late morning as he continues to adjust to one nap (and at that point he's usually getting hungry).  He did well hanging out though.  Here are a few more photos of him passing the time at the playground with us.

This one is kind of sad.  His last standing picture before his accident that caused the fracture. =(

Around 12:15pm Tav and Doug rejoined us at lunch near the acquarium.  That is when Penn went down the slide and had his little accident that caused big pain.  We still walked through just a big of the underwater tunnel portion of the aquarium before getting the boys home for naps/rest time (we really had no idea that Penn had injured himself so).  It was such a great day together.  So ironic that the evening was about to head in such a different direction.