taking the zoo to the zoo

henry is my very own personal zoo, so we had our hands full (all three of us, me-my mom and dad) when we took him to an actual zoo last weekend. :)  he was very good, but very busy!

all the way up on his tippy toes to catch a glimpse of the flamingos (he let us know that he was too big to have anyone hold him)

 AND what do you know....there are all of these exotic animals at the zoo and one of henry's favorites is the turkey. turns out gunka is pretty good at calling them and getting them to fluff out their feathers and gobble back--which henry thoroughly enjoyed of course.  

gunka the turkey whisperer.

 i would have liked to just run around and snap cool shots of all the animals....but not with my own little monkey on the loose.  

 the carousel.  henry started off riding the elephant's back for two seconds and then decided that my hip was probably more comfortable than the butt of a big pachyderm...i'm sure :)

 we flew past the monkeys, took one look at the penguins and raced away......but when it came to the goats, we stuck around for awhile.  (ahem---austin?  you know how i've been telling you that we are going to get a pet goat someday?  here's proof that we need one.  you will have to give in now  :)

 probably because we could feed them

 "okay, give me more change for the goat pellet machine"

 hahaha,  i just now reversed the image of this photo in my mind so that henry and gunka were on the other side of the fence.  please do not feed the animals.  hehe.

a goat enjoying his goatness.

 showing gunka how the change machine works so that we can feed goats until.....the cows goats come home?

 then after feeding the goats it was only polite to offer the giant stone turtle a wood chip.

 oh henry

:)

 that's how we roll.

henry prefers to push the stroller rather than be pushed in it.  i can rarely take him for a walk with the stroller now--we might get two blocks before its his turn to push.

 another mode of transport :)

 egads.  after i told george about our trip to the zoo he showed me this video clip of a lion trying to eat a baby through the glass at another zoo.  yikes.  that would be to creepy for me to just let h sit there like that. yeah, no thanks.  we will keep a safe distance.  i've read life of pi.

 and finally, just in case gunka forgot amidst all of the distractions a zoo has to offer, henry made sure he remembered where his nose was.  yup. right in the middle of your face.

it was a good day :)