The Zoo in December

Have I ever mentioned that we love the zoo? It's the week of Christmas, and I've planned ahead so there's not much wrapping or shopping left to be done; the weather is absolutely beautiful; and we haven't made it to the new African Forest section of the zoo yet -- so off we go!

The new African Forest is the largest expansion the Houston Zoo has ever done, and I would have to say it's pretty awesome.  Two white rhinos flew in from Africa to live here at our zoo; a group of ten chimpanzees relocated from California; and the giraffes moved across the zoo to a new habitat.

It was fun to see Christmas ornaments in the trees.

 Lily was feeding a leaf to her favorite statue at the zoo.

 Lily has always favored the elephants, but Dylan loves the giraffes! Here is a picture of him looking at them... I love his little raised eyebrows, you can tell that he's excited.

 The new giraffe habitat has a feeding station! There was quite a line to feed the giraffes when we were there, but I'm sure we'll be able to feed one sometime soon.

 Here's Dylan looking at the giraffes from the other side of the exhibit.

 Lily has developed a love for flowers, plants, and trees in the past few months.  She's been picking flowers from flowerbeds all over the place, and she wants to plant all sorts of little things (not really seeds, but little things that she thinks look like seeds) in the backyard.  We're going to have to plant flowers this spring.  In the meantime, though, she's happy to hug the trees at the zoo.

 This rhino photo-op spot at the zoo has left Lily wondering when one of the rhinos in the exhibit will have a baby, since it has what appears to be a mama rhino with a baby.  After two elephant births in the last six months or so, I think she expects all of the large zoo animals to start multiplying.

 We always take sandwiches with us to the zoo, and Lily ran a little way ahead of Dylan and I so she could lean against the wall of the tunnel while she ate.

 I love the chimp exhibit.  There are a couple different places where you can see into the exhibit, and it seems big (which I suppose it has to be, since there are 10 animals).

 Lily had fun playing the drums.

 The bongo was very interested in Lily and her banana! He came right over to where she was standing outside his fence and watched her eat.  I've never seen the bongos react to the zoo visitors before - they've always just done their own thing inside their area with no apparent regard to the people.  This was funny to watch.

Although he loves getting up close to the fence to see, it's hard to let Dylan out of the stroller much when I take the kids to the zoo by myself.  He doesn't want to get back into it once he's been out, but he also doesn't understand that he has to hold my hand if he wants to walk between exhibits.  He'd rather just run all over the place, which of course doesn't work very well with other people pushing strollers and older kids walking around, not to mention that Mommy has to keep up with Lily too.  But I do try to let him get out to look at the animals without the stroller near the end of our zoo visits.