San Diego Zoo

Wednesday morning we headed to the world famous San Diego Zoo.  The zoo was so crowded that day.  Since kids were free in October just about every school was having a field trip to the zoo that day, and the day after, and the day we were at the Safari park.  We were always battling herds of children!  We didn't let that dampen our experience too much though, we love zoos, and so do our kids! 

The kids especially loved the reptile house.  Max loved anything that he could see up close.

They also loved the children's zoo and the bug house.

We stopped for a snack over by the monkey cages, and this little guy really wanted some of our granola bars!  It was really hard to say no to this face!

 Especially when he stuck his little hands through the fence.

 Then to make us feel really guilty he brought over his friend who was also giving us sad eyes!  We obeyed the rules and didn't give in though.  So sorry little monkeys!

Oh funny story.  If you can't tell what's going on in this picture, these are pygmie hippos "getting friendly".  Of course as soon as that happens a big group a school kids enter the exhibit.  I heard one of the teachers say, "Oh they are just trying to play leap frog!"  haha.  There was also a monkey that was bothering them.  It would swing on the vines and splash water in their faces.  haha.  It was highly entertaining.  We also went to this zoo on thursday too, and when we got to this exhibit the hippos were at it again!  haha.  

We ended up seeing the entire zoo on foot that day.  At the end we rode the guided tour bus and we had such a fun tour guide!  She'd been at the zoo for 20 something years and you could tell it was a passion of hers.  She told us lots of random things about the zoo like how the monkeys like to ride the otters at dusk, how arthritic elephants take 20,000 miligrams of Motrin, that Pandas poop 30 times a day, she knew all the animals names and told us all about them.  At the end of the tour everyone gave her a round of applause.  It was really fun.

This was Kate's favorite animal of the whole trip. She loved the baby giraffe with the "crazy hair"!

More pictures of the San Diego Zoo to come, because we also visited this zoo the next day!