Little Bear Goes to the Zoo

Last Tuesday was preschool field trip day! 

Our last one. sniffle.  Here is our Little Bear (another one of the many names that her daddy and I call her)!

Eager preschoolers ready to enter the Henry Vilas Park Zoo!

Guess who had a baby?  The lion couple!!  You can see the cute little guy in the back.  (My close-ups kept focusing on the chain link fence instead of the lions.  I'm sure there's a way to fix that, but I don't know what it is.)

Wynne studied this giraffe for quite some time.  She said, "It looks like it has big boobs, Mom."  I believe she was referring to its front hip bones. ??

Springtime is always a great time to visit the zoo.  It isn't too hot, so the animals are active--even this ancient tortoise! 

Wootsie hopped on for a ride ;)

Wynne's teacher let us all experience the zoo individually with our children.  It was so nice for me to be there with just one child.  I had the luxury of letting Wynne decide where we were going, how long we were going to be there, and to discuss what was on her mind. 

We spent almost two hours just strolling through the first half of the zoo.  To me, the halfway point is the children's area.  Wynne was so proud of herself for climbing up into the big tree all by herself!  "Mom I wasn't even scared this time!" (referring to a year ago)

She even climbed up the big rock without any help from me.

The trip back down, however, was causing her some anxiety!  I made her pause for a picture before letting her jump into my arms.

On the bus ride up, Wynne mentioned how she was looking forward to seeing a porcupine.  I think we were both surprised at how big a porcupine actually is!  This picture shows its back and length of quills (with some additional quills stuck in a trunk).

Bonus:  a great view of the Red Panda!  Isn't it cute??

 My favorite photo taken:  the meerkat :)

After some lunch, we had a little over an hour to explore the rest of the zoo. We got lucky because the bears were out (grizzly and polar), and I bet we stayed with the river otter for a good ten minutes!  The water looked very refreshing by afternoon, as the temps rose into the eighties! This guy could back-flip like nobody's business.

I felt so lucky to be able to spend the whole day exploring with our Not-so-little-anymore-Little Bear!

How many are your works, LORD!



In wisdom you made them all;

the earth is full of your creatures.--Psalm 104:24