Going to the Zoo

We went to the zoo on Saturday.

That was what I told Brent that I wanted for Mother's Day.

I definitely had a case of camera envy. I REALLY miss having an SLR, manual focus and a good zoom lens...and I kept seeing all these people walking around with their digital SLRs...and man oh man I want one. Maybe when we get our tax refund next year...we'll see. Until then...I will probably be a little bit envious. ANYWAY...back to the zoo...

We thought Samantha would LOVE the zoo...after all she loves animals. She was so excited when we told her that we were going to the zoo and we talked about what animals she would see. She said elephants and cheetahs and tigers and lions and monkeys and cows. We told her that she would definitely see the first five, but we weren't sure about the cows. We did add that she would also see giraffes.

We saw the elephants. And she said "Too loud. Walk away!" The elephants were silent, though. Why would she say they were too loud?

We finally figured out that she was scared and she was either meaning they were too scary or too big...or possibly both.

We saw the crocodiles through the glass. And she said "Too loud. Walk away!" We saw tigers. She said "Too loud. Walk away!"

Are you seeing a pattern here? None of the animals made any sounds at all, but she kept telling us they were too loud and we needed to walk away.

She did like the penguins and thinks that they swim fast in the water.

She liked the fish. She liked the kangaroos (actually wallabys which are much smaller, but hey, they look like kangaroos, so we just called them kangaroos.)

She liked the turtles, ducks and birds. She liked feeding the birds a seed stick.

She liked the monkeys. She liked the baby giraffes which were far enough away that she couldn"t tell how big they were. She liked the "deer" which was what she called every deer or sheeplike creature. And she did see some cows, which she also liked.

Everything else, all the animals that you typically WANT to see at the zoo, were "too loud."

But when you ask her about the trip now, she doesn't say anything was too loud. And she does talk about the elephants. So maybe it wasn't such a bad idea after all. But we will be waiting a while before going to the zoo again.