a morning at the zoo

when ben took a random vacation day this week, we decided to make the most of the morning and take a trip to the phoenix zoo. and naturally, we put on our fashionably sunnies for the occasion. elinor was so excited to go! she grabbed her sunnies and had them on well before we left the house. she grabbed her snuggles and her water and gave us an exuberant "ready!" as she strolled out the door. this girl means business. on the ride there, we discussed all the animals that we would be seeing and the excitement and noise level built. we did our best animal impressions in preparation. p.s. i am going to work on getting a live recording of elinor's pig sound. hilarious. kind of a growl + snort hybrid and it gets me every time. all kinds of over-the-top. so you can imagine her delight when we got to the javelinas which actually make a similar sound. clearly, she knows that we are desert dwellers and our pigs are more likely to be javelina snorters than oinky pink farm piglets. too smart, this one.

we had such a lovely morning. except for having to view snake feeding time. not cool. very poor timing on our part. but, it was fun strolling around and learning and seeing cool animals. everything is way better when experiencing it with a toddler. well, not everything. a fancy five-star meal, not so much...

here are a few snaps from the day. i might interject a few remarks as we go...

javelinas! they were so funny. rooting around and then taking a nice stroll around the perimeter of their habitat, just to show off.

bald eagles. they were amazing.

and this sassy face. also, amazing.

∧

elinor was pretty excited about the monkeys. she was making the loudest sounds...i think, in an attempt to communicate to them. she kept laughing and saying "silly monkey".