Did I ever mention that we purchased a year pass to our zoo?
Have I even mentioned that we actually live in a city with a zoo?? I think I have, but never, in my wildest dreams, would I have lived in this city...or in any other city with a zoo. And honestly, I'm not all that wild about zoos, because of the whole animals in captivity thing.
But our zoo is a "natural habitat" zoo, so at least the animals have pretty surroundings and aren't cooped up in a concrete cage.
Anyway, weekend-before-last was a long weekend (one of those obscure state holidays for which Alabama is notorious), and we have been promising Iliya another zoo trip...so we decided to go for a couple of hours before lunchtime. It was a pretty short trip, but since Iliya only cared about seeing lions (remember his obsession with The Wizard of Oz?) and riding the train, we accomplished our goals rather quickly.
This is a man on a mission, if I ever saw one:
And we took a quick stop to look at the turtles:
This peacock was one grouch guy...kept pecking at the Coke machine...maybe it took his money?
Or maybe he thought he saw another pretty male peacock (in the reflection) who was threatening to go after his family:
Aren't these funny baby peacocks...chicks...or...(I just looked it up) peachicks. I love the miniature "fans" on the top of their heads:
Aha! Finally!! Looking at the...
Main attraction (at least as far as Iliya was concerned):
And right next to the lions:
The train ride!
And finally...tired...but eating a snack before heading out of the zoo for the day:

It was a really fun day...but the zoo was just half of it! Again...to be continued...
I don't like peacocks. They're birds. And they're MEAN.
My word verification says sesseme. How does little man feel about Sesame Street? (Big fan, here.)
Kate, come visit us in AL and we'll take you to see the zoo! :) Of course, if you come all the way over here to AL, you'd probably want to go somewhere else in the US to a bigger zoo. But...well, you could come to our house and just be entertained by this child actor of mine. Ooh, which makes me think...I have a video I need to get together & post, just for you (and my mom, of course). :)
As far as Sesame Street goes, I LOVE it, and have such fond memories of watching it, as a child. Iliya enjoys it, but won't sit through an entire episode, yet. We don't have the TV on a whole lot (except on long trips and occasionally at other people's houses), so I haven't really "pushed" him watching it. I feel like he would enjoy the older SS better than the new one (or maybe that's just me)...and I think that he'll really get into it in the next couple of months (since he really is just now showing an interest in identifying letters, numbers, etc.). Of course, if I could find an episode "brought to you by the letter I," he would probably want to watch that over & over! :)