1st Trip to the Zoo

The girls are enjoying their buck sticks from Daddy's deer for
lunch. When we arrived we had our picnic lunch at Herman
Park first then set out to spend the afternoon at the zoo.

Where are the prairie dogs...apparently this exhibit is under
construction but they had fun playing "prairie dog".

Black bear taking it easy and allowing onlookers a chance

for photo ops.

A recently acquired leopard. Notice the extra skin...

they have put him on a diet as he was apparently getting to
fat...only in America!

We got a rare glimpse of the tiger moving around and getting

a drink of water. They are such beautiful and graceful animals.

Andrew runs up to this fence and goes yummy cows...we

like to eat the cows! These were called Ankoloes I think?

I think Andrew is right these would probably be good eating.

A margay getting his goat's milk lunch.

Look at those paws!

*remember to turn off music to listen to video it is in the sidebar of the blog, click pause on the playlist.

The ocelot does not like to be squirted in the mouth with

the goat's milk but prefers to lick it off of the stump.

A beautiful cat.

A fussa...I don't think I have ever seen or heard of this

animal before. This is where we met Richard the zoo keeper.

The cheetahs stretching. The Houston Zoo has a large variety

of wild cats which is wonderful for our family as we love them.

"What stinks?" Ahh! yes, the new elephant

exhibit. Even a new mansion doesn't keep

these animals from smelling!

Swimming with the piranhas...yikes!

Playing in the mangrove roots. The new rain forest

exhibit is very nice.

"We found Nemo, and another one too!" "Dorey also"

Andrew was so cute when he saw the clown fish in the

aquarium in the Rain forest exhibit.

A rare glimpse of Lou the hedgehog as she has been retired

and only "lives" at the zoo. We were told that she is old and

has done "her time" so she is no longer on exhibit just living

her days out in a roomy cage behind closed doors. The zoo

keeper brings her out on occasion to let the kids pet her and

see a real hedgehog.

Kathlena and I petting the spiky hedgehog from Madagascar.

Andrew taking a turn to pet Lou.

A Shiflet tradition is to collect smashed pennies from the souvenir penny machines. It is a great inexpensive and fun souvenir for kids to collect. When we were traveling to Russia we actually found one in Germany. We found a website off of this one and it tells the locations of them from all over the world. From this website we found out that there was one in Russia...bummer would've been neat to have some from there.

We waited out the rain as long as possible and finally set out to the Houston Zoo on Thursday, Nov. 13. It was still overcast and a little cool in shade which made for a great day to stroll through the zoo. Andrew and Kathlena had never been to a Zoo before and it was so fun to try and explain this whole concept to them. At first Andrew was a little nervous as he didn't like the idea of "seeing" wild animals. Once he understood that they were in cages and could not get out he began to get excited at the thought of seeing some the animals he has only heard about in books.

It has been a while since the rest of us have been to the Houston Zoo too and much has changed. I must say it has definitely changed for the better! The zoo has recently acquired grizzly bears and new leopards. We had a great opportunity to see a Fussa, Margay and Ocelot as Richard the zoo keeper was out feeding them and Andrew got to ask him lots of questions to which Richard was more than happy to share about the animals he takes care of. The Houston Zoo has also recently built a huge Asian Elephant exhibit (to which no $$$ was spared at $5 million) Sadly, one of the newest born in captivity elephants, Mac at 18 months had just died the previous weekend from a virus. There were still 4-5 elephants in the exhibit though. Our trip was great fun. I have missed going to the zoo and glad to have such a nice zoo close by. I am sure we will be going again soon.