The Phoenix Zoo

This is my first blogging adventure. For those of you who don't know, Larry has contributed everything to our blog thus far.
So, about a week and a half ago, we woke up and I decided it would be a fun day to take the kids to the zoo... it ended up being a very HOT day to take the kids to the zoo, but we still had a great time. Our first encounter was with the giraffes...they have a really fun, very rickety tree house structure that you can climb up to get a face to face look at these amazing animals!

Then it was on to the zebras! A zookeeper was giving a presentation on zebras, so we got to learn some interesting facts along the way!

Then, a favorite, the Pink Flamingos! When we were living on Oahu, we took several trips to the Honolulu Zoo, and the first encounter as you walked into the zoo was the flamingo exhibit. We couldn't find the big pond for them here in Phoenix though. We were wondering where they find their lunch!

Along our way we found a slight detour to a new water park. It was installed last month for the kids to cool off in the Arizona heat! What a fantastic idea! It took Catherine quite awhile to warm up to the idea of getting all wet under the waterfalls and jets, but Ethan, to no surprise, had no reservations!

Then it was off to the monkeys! They were mostly hiding in the trees, but occasionally we could see them running along their ropes to a neighboring tree!

The orangutans were HUGE! There was a baby one off in the back playing in a large white sheet. It was so fun to watch!

We only saw one elephant, which decided to go for a swim!

We saw several birds, including the sightly king vulture coming up...Catherine was showing me how to sign "bird"...

Catherine practicing her gymnastic skills of "walking on the balance beam!"

Then it was off to taming the alligators!

What a cute tortoise!

My priceless pearls!

Ethan LOVED the petting zoo, though I'm not sure the goat liked Ethan very much...

King of the bench!

These amazing Galapagos Tortoises were over a hundred years old!

I have an interesting story about this tiger...

The king of the Jungle...sleeping, of course...

The rhinoceroses are such incredible animals! I sure wouldn't want this guy chasing me!

Okay, for my story about this tiger... The zoo was closing in about 15 minutes, and we really wanted to see the tigers and lions before leaving. Well, of course they were on the complete other side of the zoo from where we were at the petting zoo... so we were really booking it in the 104 degree weather to try and see these majestic animals before closing. We made it, but we were the only people over there. We saw the tiger and then went around the corner to the lion and rhino before turning back to head out to the car. As we were approaching the tiger's habitat, I had the feeling to ask Catherine to get into the stroller. After she was in the stroller, I kept looking over at the Tiger who was pacing around in his habitat. As we were almost all the way around the fence at the front of his habitat, he jumped up into a large tree that pretty much canopied the entire open area. I thought the tiger would just stop at the first fork in the tree branches and lay there, but it kept climbing until it was out of sight. As I looked up at the branches of the tree, I realized that the outer branches were just barely inside the habitat. Not knowing much about tigers, but realizing small house cats can jump pretty far, I started getting nervous. We were walking very quickly, and I kept telling myself that animals when the animals can sense my fear, they're more likely to attack. As much as I tried to calm my nerves telling myself that those that care for the animals obviously know their capabilities and create the habitats in such a way that they shouldn't be able to get out...it was to no avail. I began to wonder if the tree had been pruned regularly enough. I couldn't help myself, the fight or flight response began to take over, and I found myself going from an exhausted stroll to a nice little sprint toward the front of the zoo with the kids squealing like they were on a roller coaster until we had actually encountered more people. I'm sure it was well past closing time by now. Needless to say, we didn't have any confrontations with this tiger, but I still feel the need to find out from the zoo about the safety of the size of the tiger's tree before we return to the zoo for another visit.