three little monkeys...

After several weeks of begging and other obligations to be met, we finally had a free Friday to enjoy at the zoo.  It had been very cool the day before but Friday started off a bit warm.  Fortunately, overcast skies came and it cooled off again a bit.  This Friday was particularly empty and a great time to enjoy the zoo without millions of other visitors.

First stop, the reptile house--per David's request.

We watched the elephants for a while.

Then the cats... asleep as usual.

On the way...to the African section.

Lunchtime finally!

Stop off to view the giraffes.

We went into the new bug house.  I must say I was very disappointed.  It was small but the biggest issue was that more than half the window exhibits were higher than any child could see and several I even had a hard time viewing due to my height of "only" 5 '7".  The cutter ants were fascinating though. And we did get to see a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis.

 (see the bug?)

Spent a few minutes in the Children's area.  Never noticed the hedgehog's face before.  Rather an ugly creature, at least this one was.  We lost E as she took off to play on the playground.  Fortunately, after a few frantic minutes we did find her.  And then we went to pet the goats.  A was very uncertain but E (normally my scaredy) was enthusiastic about running from goat to goat to brush their hair.

loved the reading meerkats.  Wouldn't they enjoy some more interesting reading? :)

Last stop was the monkeys.  I was already pushing my three monkeys to their limit.  (it was 2:00 and no nap yet--was lovely and almost completely empty at this point!)  The ring-tailed lemurs reminded me so much of my three monkeys though.  As the rest of the zoo settled down to a nap, these monkeys were still going strong chasing each other around their cage!