Valentine's Day at the Zoo

Valentine's Day was gorgeous, weather-wise, so Kate and I decided to spend the day at the zoo. We hadn't been in a long time because of the cold weather, and she really wanted to check on the baby elephants Belle and Bowie. (She called them Bell-ee and Bowie.)  Of course I never complain about a zoo day.

 Naturally we had to stop to climb on the Bluebonnet statue, which is one of her favorite things to do at the zoo. She loves all the statues so I have several pictures of her with each of them.

 The babies are getting big and they are SO CUTE!! I have always wanted a baby elephant - I just think elephants are precious and I could sit and watch them all day. They were running around and playing in the hay.

 We were there in time to see them feeding a chicken to the large crocodile outside of MOLA. He's massive and is usually just laying still in one place, but while we were there we got to watch him catch his chicken off the line, swim down to the bottom and eat it, and then go find a place to relax afterward.

 Kate's new thing is winking at you to let you know everything is all right, or to say hi, or to say I love you, or just to wink at you. She is quite cute when she does it.

 She got Minnie Mouse for Valentine's Day from Bill, so we had to bring her along for the trip because it was "Minnie's first time to see the zoo". Although I told Kate that I wasn't going to carry Minnie for her, it seems like I got stuck holding her every time Kate needed to climb on something to get a better view.

 No zoo day is complete without our train ride and carousel ride, either.

 That day one of the hippos was actually out of the water and walking around. Normally they are both hiding under the water completely submerged or with just the top of their heads sticking out, so I was really excited for Kate to see what the whole hippo body looked like. While we were watching, a woman came over with her three children and said, THREE TIMES, "Guys! Come look at the rhinoceros!!" I nearly slapped her.