First Zoo Trip of the Year

We went to the zoo today. It was rediculously sunny...and really, really cold with even colder wind!!! Freezing temperatures or not, seeing the bright sun was all it took to convince me it was a good day to visit the zoo. Fresh homemade blueberry muffins and the zoo was all I could think of when I woke up. We hadn't been to the zoo since summer, and never made it to the Zoo Lights during the holidays. And since we have just a few months left of our membership, we needed to put it to use.

First up, Happy!!! Esperanza loves penguins because of the movie Happy Feet. Can you blame the girl? Anytime she spots a penguin in a book, on a movie, as a trinket in a store or the real thing, she calls it Happy.

Next, elephants! Quick little story...Esperanza and I read books every night before bed now. More often than not she chooses an animal picture book. Every time we get to a picture of an elephant and I ask her what it is, she says helicopter. Helicopter?! How does an elephant get mistaken as a helicopter? She has been a little obsessed with helicopters lately, and maybe just hadn't heard the word elephant associated with the actual image enough times. Who knows. After several nights of this though, I started kinda making fun of her about it and last night she finally got it right. Today at the zoo she knew the elephant was an elephant and not a helicopter.
Then we headed to the lions, after she'd been asking for them since we told her we were going to the zoo. Another association with a movie, The Lion King, she loves lions!

We were fortunate that on such a chilly winter day, we were able to see almost all of the animals. There are however several exhibits at the Portland Zoo that have an inside and outside viewing area so that probably helped. We were also fortunate that Esperanza not only survived the cold day without too much complaint, she really had a wonderful time. The morning started off rough with her, so we didn't have high hopes of the day turning out as well as it did. Of course, being the daddy's girl that she is, Armando carried her about 90% of the time.