Zoo Day

My brother and sister-in-law are here from Cleveland for a few weeks. It has been so fun to see them and spend time together as a family. Andrew has especially enjoyed spending time with his cousins, Caleb and Quinton. Yesterday, we took them to the zoo. Mike had to work (hooray for the chance to work, but sad for us). The weather was perfect, overcast, a litttle humid and not too hot. The boys loved seeing all of the animals. Our favorites: monkeys, elephants, giraffes and tortoises.

They loved running around and getting wet in the splash cave. Andrew "fought" the water spouts. Ben tried to drink the water out of the little stream (yuck!). Caleb tried to avoid getting too wet.

We ate lunch in the children's zoo section with some unexpected visitors. The pushy chickens even ate a cracker out of poor little Benjamin's hand! Caleb was chasing after the chickens and Andrew and Ben were trying to shoo them away.

The boys got brave and pet the goats.
I think they liked washing their hands even better than petting the animals. Seeing kids excited about cleaning makes a mother proud.

They loved riding the animals in the playground. Ben especially liked the cow (or as he calls it, the "moo").

As we strolled along the paths soaking in our beautiful day, Andrew wistfully said to me, "I love seeing Caleb for reals now! When I see him on the computer, that is just seeing him for pretends." (We chat via webcam most Sunday evenings.) Cousin heaven, this week is. If only we had more time to see them for reals, and not just pretends...