Off to See the Animals

With the beautiful weather in store for the weekend, we decided earlier in the week to head for the Houston Zoo on Saturday. The zoo is located in Hermann Park next to the Medical Center. (http://www.hermanpark.org/) After taking the advice of a co-worker, we went "early" to try to beat the crowd. Now early for us after sleeping in and taking the girls out was nearly 11 AM. The parking lot was quite full, but not nearly packed like it was when we left. People were lined up to take any spot that opened up.

Once we got into the zoo (http://www.houstonzoo.org/), we visited the aquarium to see the fishes, and then headed out to the coy pond. Not only was the pond huge, but the coy within it were gigantic. James and another person there got the fish to come to the surface, so a couple of kids could see them. I couldn't believe the size of their mouths.

Then is was in to see a few birds, turtles, chipmunks, and a few more fish. We got a good laugh out of watching the chipmucks run like crazy all over their exhibit. They were some of the most active critters we saw all day. I think we showed up at nap time. All of the larger animals seemed to be finishing up their lunch or napping in the sun.

The most entertaining exhibit was the meerkats. We found the Hallie and the Ginger in the group. They had no shame! We enjoyed wathcing them chase each other around, dig in the dirt,

and just hang out. The first picture is of one who rolled around in the dirt dirt and then decided to sun. Totally Gingeresque! And then the next guy enjoyed chillin' and enjoying the attention of the crowd.

Then there was Miles, the newest addition to the giraffe family. He was so cute!

We learned while walking around the exhibit that Miles turned 8 weeks old on Saturday. A picture of his stats is included because his size is entertaining. He was 5'9" and 110 pounds at birth, so he's packed on the weight and the inches the last couple of months. The Houston Zoo's website actually has links to updates on all of the new additions. I actually looked up Miles to be sure I got my facts straight, and I saw all of the pictures and updates they've shared about him. How cute!

We ended up spending nearly 3 hours wandering around seeing all of the exhibits. James got his picture taken with the Asian Elephants, and he took mine with the tiger. Not sure what that means, but at least we can show we really went! I thought I was going to get out of having to see the reptile exhibit, but James caught that as he was checking the map one last time. We dodged them upfront when we went to see the meerkats. I went to be supportive but had the hebbie-jebbies the whole time. They just creap me out.