Zoo

The girls and I met a family that just moved over from St. Louis and will be here for awhile.  M and their dad work together.  So Mom K, with her two daughters, K and B, and I took the four girls to the zoo.  Their girls are 7 and 5 so everyone was excited to hang out together.  Honestly, we have such a terrific zoo in St. Louis and other fabulous zoos around our country that I thought the zoo would just be OK.  First off, the zoo is huge!  We were there all day from 10-6 (closed the place down) and only saw about half of it.  As we are taking the cab to the zoo, you immediately notice that you are leaving the city and there are beautiful trees and flowers lining the highway. 

Inside the zoo, tropical trees and plants canopy the walkways.  Many of the less dangerous animals have minimal fencing or cages.  You don't touch the animals but you feel like you are right in their habitat.  We saw elephants, hippos, otters, white tigers and so many amazing exhibits of different kinds of monkeys.  You would walk through the paths and see a branch move and look over or above you and see a monkey swinging from a tree.  We saw several baby monkeys of different species.  Unbelievable!  We walked through a kangaroo path where they were walking about and we could touch or feed them.

Look right over Keylime's head and you can see one of the white tigers


The grand finale, toward the back of the zoo, is a fun water and sprinkler park.  The girls had a blast and it felt good to get cool after a hot afternoon.  After the water park, we head to some smaller zip lines that the girls flew on for awhile.  They loved it.  There was playground type equipment tucked back into tree areas that were like a hidden gem to the girls.  They didn't want to leave but we had to since they were closing!  A rainstorm quickly came as we were walking back to the front gate so we had to run  up to the front entrance. 

K and Keylime at the water park

B and TieDye sitting together in the van on the way back to the city

I have a glistening, glow to me always.  How do I achieve this look, you ask?   . . .  A tanned tropical glow, new moisturizer, vacation fits me.  You could call it that OR you could call it a lot of sweat!  M and I have been laughing at how much you can sweat here!  (Ellen C. - I hope you are ready this entry since we have laughed about this before.)  Many days it is a two-shower day! Oh, and don't even get me started on my hair (which I struggle with on a good day at home.)  Curly hair and tropical conditions = hair that looks like Monica Geller (from "Friends" hair on the episode they went on the cruise ( if you remember that episode, I know you are scared now!)  So a shout out to all the curly haired girls in the world!