Oregon Zoo

When we first woke up Thursday morning it was sprinkling a little bit so we were not sure if we would go to the zoo that day.  But after breakfast it seemed to have stopped so we decided to go for it.
We needed to do some laundry before we went so we got it started before breakfasts and finished about an hour of so after we finished eating.
Nate and Amy met us at our hotel and then we all drove to the Oregon Zoo.

After driving around a while we found a parking spot and then got the strollers ready to go see some animals.
It is a really pretty zoo.  Lots of trees and fun paths to walk on.  We started walking through the trees and saw some cool birds and fun nests and big trees for the kids to play on.  The big tree was a slide for the kids to slide down.

My favorites at any zoo are the elephants and giraffes.  When we got to the giraffes Josh told me, "Mom here are your giraffes."  I thought that was so sweet since he heard that they were one of my favorites.  We did see a couple giraffes but they were kind of boring.  One was eating and the other was just hanging out.

When we got to the elephants they were just kind of standing around not doing much and then all of the sudden we saw a big ball come out from under the covered part and a baby elephant ran after it and started playing with the ball.  It was so cute.  We stood and watched those elephants for at least 20 minutes.  The baby would kick it right to the other elephants and get it stuck under them and then he would have to figure out how to get it back.  Adorable!

They had a little area where people can pet some different animals...some might call it a petting zoo.  They had some saddles for the kids to sit on like they were riding a horse.  Josh liked that.  They had a chicken and a bunny out for people to pet.  The bunny was on a "petting break" so we only got to bet the chicken.  I would have rather bet the bunny, but what can you do.

They also had some goats in a closed off area for people to pet.  We had to wait our turn and then we got to pet three different goats.  The kids seemed to like that, but didn't go wild for the goats.  But all three kids did pet the goats.

They were doing a lot of work on the zoo so they had a lot of animals missing from their homes.  They did have like four black bears and a couple polar bears that were fun to see.  We got to see them pretty close and they were fairly active.
We had a pretty fun bunch of kids with us...who is as tall as the bears?  I think Josh sitting on Daddy wins.  Silly dudes.

This was so much fun to watch.  There were these things...I forget what they are...penguins?  Josh totally loved them.  They were super playful and would follow the kids around.
Josh and Matt would start out at one end of the glass and then move and the penguins would totally follow them.  It was so cute.

I think that Josh could have played with them for hours.  These animals totally like people and have learned how to play with them.  Totally adorable.

We saw lots of different types of monkeys and apes.  This one sat and looked right in front and just watch the people as they came by to watch him.  He was really cool.  Josh had enough of the monkeys at this point and just wanted to sit in the stroller.

This was a fun statue that they had.  The boys liked climbing on it.  We had to wait for some older boys to get down who were on it for what seemed like a very long time.  But waiting is just part of life.

They had the funnest bird enclosure where you can buy some sugar water and then the birds will come to you and drink out of your cup.

I guess you are not suppose to pet the birds because Josh tried to pet one and it bit him on the finger.  It was pretty sad for Josh but I was too excited holding this beautiful bird and feeding him to pay too much attention to him.  Luckily Josh got over it quickly and was ready to try and feed them again.

We tried to have Tyler hold one a couple different times but his hands were just too small so the birds wouldn't climb on them.  He did get to hold the food and the bird would drink out of it while being on my hand.  It was so much fun to feed them.  One of my favorite things from the Oregon Zoo.