If I Could Talk to the Animals

Why are you out in this heat?

If I could talk to the animals and they could talk to me, they'd probably be asking me why we chose the hottest day of the week here in Houston to go to the Houston Zoo.  It seemed like a good idea at the time.  Today is the first day of school for many children here in the Houston area so we thought there would be fewer people at the zoo.  Turns out we were right.   There were very few people there which was nice but I had to wonder if maybe they just had decided to stay elsewhere where there was air conditioning and cold drinks.  But we persevered and we did enjoy ourselves.

If you were to ask little Mika what she enjoyed the most about the zoo, she would probably list things like climbing on the turtle statue.

Also big on her list would be going up and down stairs with her Nana.  Mika LOVES steps and could go up and down them until you are completely worn out and she'd STILL want to do it again.

She might mention eating french fries.  We finally broke down and took a short break in an air-conditioned snack bar to replenish ourselves with some cold water and a little bit of food.  As the adults sat and rested their feet, Mika took the opportunity to make a game of it.

Where's Mika?

She hid between two booths and then we had to try to "find" her again and again and again.

We watched the elephants get their baths.  It's amazing what elephants will do for some cut-up apples.  Personally, I'd hold out for donuts or cake but I'm not sure that would even be enough to make me want to stand there and get hosed off.

We took silly pictures.

Mika introduced Mr. Lion to the big lion.

We watched the monkeys and they watched us.

Luke seemed to enjoy the zoo, too, when he was awake and in the shade.  He was a real trooper the entire morning.

Mostly Luke just slept as did many of the animals who managed to find shady spots in their areas to take a nap.

But Mika's absolutely favorite thing to do at the zoo was to go to the Children's Zoo section and pet the goats.  In fact, she enjoyed it so much that we had to take her there twice before we left.  I'll be sharing those pictures with you tomorrow. 

For now, this Nana is going to put her feet up and relax.