A Quick Trip to the Zoo

Dear Abigail,

On Wednesday, your mommy blew caution to the wind and decided to take a last minute, unplanned trip to the zoo.  I know, it's crazy, huh.  But man alive, what a fun time we had.  It was just WAY too pretty not to be outdoors and it had been awhile since we went to the zoo, so as soon as Kate woke up from her morning nap (and stuffed lunch down) we headed that way.  We got to the zoo at 2 and realized it closed at 4 which at first made me nervous, but it was perfect.  You insisted we go see the elephants first, which of course are on the other side of the zoo, but that, too worked out because a 'zookeeper talk' was about to happen!  

 We watched the elephant and zookeeper do several tricks including playing soccer AND football!  Ha!  You thought that was awesome.  At the end, the zookeeper asked if there were any questions.  You told me you had one so I told you to raise your hand and wait your turn.  I wasn't sure what it was, but decided I'd just let you ask away.  Finally the zookeeper saw your hand and you asked "Can I please pet your elephant?"!! A couple reasons why I loved this:  1) Mommy has taught you that when you see a dog, you have to go ask the owner before you pet him, and you've become really good about this, not being the least bit worried about asking anyone if you can pet their dog.  So I can only assume you were using your good manners and asking before petting the elephant. And 2) You said "please" and the zookeeper loved it!  She said that while she wished you could, the rules say you can't pet them.  I told her we'd go to the Memphis zoo to pet the animals, then! :)

 You did pet a bird, or, well, get really scared when it jumped on you.  And then you got mad at Mom because I wouldn't get it off of you until you smiled for a picture :)

 Part of the reason we went into the birds was because you chose to do that over riding the carousel, or so I thought...

 And we had to pay Mr. Ray a visit...

 It was so nice at the zoo because no one was there and the animals were very active.  When we went to the goats, all of them starting walking towards you so you'd pet them.  You LOVED the goats and were pretending to be the zookeeper.

 And then these two crazy goats starting acting silly...

About 5 minutes till 4 (when the zoo closes) you decided you wanted to see the tigers.  Well, I wasn't even sure there were tigers at our zoo, but I said we'd go check.  I forgot that our zoo is SO spread out and next thing I know we're deep in the zoo and it's 4:15!  I mentioned just kind of out loud that "I sure hope we don't get stuck in the zoo" and, well, that got you fired up.  You were positive we were going to spend the night at the zoo and were not too excited about.  We did get to see the tigers, but just as they were getting in their cages and roaring really loud.  I told you they were eating dinner and you started running towards the entrance because you did not want to eat dinner at the zoo!!  Don't worry, we made it out by 4:30 and no one even yelled at us!  I loved our random trip to the zoo and I'm going to be spontaneous more often!! Like once a month :)  Love you little zookeeper!