Lions & Tigers & Bears... OH MY!

And elephants and rhinos and jaguars and animals galore!! We ended the beautiful weather week we had just before Easter with a family trip, and Xander's first time, to the Tulsa Zoo! Alora absolutely loves the zoo and I think she'd go every week if she could, so I was anxious to see what the Xanderman would think of all these animals... however this was his state upon our arrival!!


He slept through the first part of our little trip but I'm sure his nap made the rest of our visit lots smoother! What did he miss... the elephants mostly and the giraffes and zebras, Alora however enjoyed all of it, here she is checkin' out the elephants thru the glass... and I'm thinkin' the bunny ears add a great touch!!


Ok, now I know you can't see any of the animals here, but the photographer in me surfaced and I loved the composition of this shot... so I got it!! She's actually watching the ducks and pelicans swim.


And eventually... the animal that awoke the Xanderman from his slumber... the "king" of the jungle!! Ok, not really, but he did start roaring just as we'd left his domain where he'd been enjoying his own little nap in the sunshine, so we came back to see if I could catch a good open mouth roar... but apparently he was finished with his announcement by the time I got there!

Once the little man was awake the stroller was absolutely NOT going to cut it! He wanted OUT and wanted to walk, by himself might I add, no holding hands!!! AHHHHHH... what independent children I have :0)

Comparing themselves to our penguin friends, Alora thought this was pretty cool...
... and at first he didn't know what to think but the closer he got the more he giggled, I'd love to know what he was thinking as he approached!

As you can see, he became very good at making friends with the statues this day!! Again, I'd just love to know what was going thru his mind...

Here are just a few more pics of the animals that I really liked... I love how the focus in this kinda made the fence wire transparent...

"Everybody has a water buffalo, mine is fast and yours is slow..." or something like that! Ha, doesn't he seem less than thrilled to be having his meal captured on film!!

Finally and just maybe *most* exciting...
We ended our visit to the zoo that day by purchasing a zoo friends membership, especially since the family membership was on sale, whoot hoo!!! Very exciting for me since this is our first go round as "zoo friends." Not to mention that I've ALWAYS wanted to be one and get that nifty little decal to put in your car window!! Hehe, I feel like I just became part of the cool crowd!! Ridiculously childish... YES, but still fun :0) I'm also really looking forward to the Starry Zoofari camping thing... Kevin really wants to do it too and I think it will be really FUN!! Has anyone ever participated in that b4, I'd love to know what you thought!! Anyway, our little zoo trip was a blast and now we can go back lots which the kiddos will love too!!!

AND... for those of you who may be wondering where this extra super large posting palooza is that I have recently spoken of, well... it's still scattered about on my *wonderful* computer!! This lovely machine and I have a love hate relationship at the moment, as in, I love it b/c it is a necessity to my photo processing livelihood but I absolutely HATE it when it decides to throw fits and be unruly, as an overloaded hard drive might occasionally do :0) So as of right now I'm just trying to keep my little computer happy until my NEW LAPTOP(insert: hallelujah chorus!!!) arrives!! Until then it is a light workload only for my beloved but mangled little machine... so bear with me, I'll catch up soon!!!