A trip to the zoo

Today I took the girls to the Gulf Coast Zoo.

We love this zoo in particular because everything is at the girls' eye level.  They can just peek through the fences and see all the incredible animals up close.

Like this porcupine.

And the baboons.  

We saw these monkeys frolicking.  I'm not exactly what kind they are but they were quite frisky.

We fed deer.  Grace named this one Bambi.

And we tried to feed the numerous rabbits running around.

We saw the tigers.  This one was twitching his tail as he watched my girls as they walked along the path.  Then all of a sudden he pounced towards Faith and she yelled, "Ah!  It stared me!" (Ah!  It scared me!)  and ran towards me saying, "Hole me, hole me!"  (Hold me, hold me!)  I was just thankful for the fence.  That tiger moved incredibly fast.

Then we watched as this peacock strutted his stuff across the sidewalk.

Next, the girls wanted to ride the merry-go-round.

And they didn't want to get off after their ride was over.

Until they saw that peacock start shaking his tail feathers!  Then Grace and Faith hopped down and ran over to him.  Faith was utterly delighted as she yelled, "Burd!  Burd!" (Bird!  Bird!) and he didn't fly away.

Grace prounouced, "Momma, I don't want to see his hiney.  I want to see his rainbow again!"  How sweet.

And after a moment or so, he turned around.

He shook his tail feathers for over 10 minutes trying to impress this lady but she just wasn't interested.  She was quite lovely, though.  I have to admit she's much more striking than the other brown birds we saw around.

Waiting for the birdies

My girls have been waiting patiently to catch a bird eating from our homemade feeders.

Grace, especially sits quietly at the window almost every morning before school.

Just hoping some bird will come and eat.

Even Chloe likes to keep watch.  Actually, she climbs into our lemon tree pot and tries to sneak a lick of peanut butter off our feeder.  Grace does not tolerate that at all.  If she sees Chloe out there, Grace yells, "NOOOO!" as she chases Chloe back inside.  Poor Chloe.  All she wants is a treat.

And then there's Faith.  She loves to see the birds on the porch, but quite often scares them away by dashing to the window while yelling, "Burd!  Burd!"  (bird! bird!).

Then she just turns and looks at me and asks, "Wared it doe?"  (Where did it go?)  Eventually those birds will realize that she is on the other side of the glass window or perhaps Faith will learn to be a bit stealthier and quieter.  It will be interesting to see which it will be.

Alligator Alley

Today we took a trip to Alligator Alley.

And we watched big alligators eat pig.

We learned some  interesting facts, too.

Did you know that alligators can go over a year without food and still survive?  And their bodies cannot digest food in temperatures below 55 degrees.  And there's no outward difference between male and female alligators.  Who knew?

Then the girls held another baby alligator and we walked around the park feeding some gators of our own.  What an awesome day.

Gulf Coast Zoo

Today we went to the Gulf Coast Zoo.

This was our first visit ever to this particular zoo.  Somewhat intimidating.  At least at first.

But then we got to see the baby kangaroos.

And those joeys won our hearts over.

Even Faith was excited to see them hop around.

And would you believe that one hopped right into a bag for Grace to hold!?

He looked at Grace looking at him, and then put his paw around Grace's neck.

Grace responded with, "I think he likes me!"  She was correct.

Then Grace brought Faith over to pet another joey.

Those kangaroos are surprisingly soft creatures.  But they are fast.  Very fast.

And tall, too.  This one is only 9 months old and he's almost as big as my 3 year old.

Then we checked out the cats.  We were amzingly close to them.

We saw lions and lionesses.

And tigers.

They saw us, too.  But just yawned at us.  My what big teeth they have!

Faith leaned in for a closer look.

Then we petted some goats.

And deer.

We spotted some birds.

Some of those lovebirds were kissing.

There were plenty of mommas watching their babies, too.

And little bunnies hopping all over the place.

I particularly liked this big tortoise.  He may have been big and slow, but he was determined to come by and say hello.  Even if it did take him a solid 15 minutes to get to us.

The smaller ones seem to be faster. This one made the trek in  half the time.

The monkeys were cute, too.

After a couple of hours it was time to head home.  Even the merry-go-round wasn't enough to keep Faith happy.  But we will come visit again sometime soon.  I bought a family pass afterall.

A trip to the alligator farm

Today the girls and I went on a little adventure.

To Alligator Alley!

While purchasing our tickets, this little guy was running loose.  He jumped on Grace's shoulder and then took off.  Isn't he darling?  He's only 9 weeks old.  The girl behind the counter told us that he fell from a tree and his mother abandoned him, so she adopted him.  Now Grace wants a pet squirrel.

Next, we bought gator chow and headed out to feed the gators.

I couldn't resist the mini man eaters...they're Grace's age!

We walked along the boardwalk.

And feed a few of the gators.  Since there are over 200, we didn't come close to feeding them all.

Captain Crunch was pretty interesting.

Even Faith enjoyed tossing some chow out.

It didn't take us long to run out of food.

So we decided to walk around the park some more.

It was quite warm, but mostly shady.

When I asked who wanted to see the baby alligators, they both raised an arm and said, "I do!"

Aren't the little hatchlings so cute?

Then it was time for the gator feeding.

This is Wes.  He's the owner of Alligator Alley and I think he's Alabama's version of Steve Irwin.

All those alligators came running as soon as he crossed over the fence.

They knew it was feeding time.  Feeding time is every day at 11:00, 1:00 and 4:00.  It was an amazing thing to watch.

Then they brought a 2 year old gator out for us to touch and hold.  At first Grace announced, "My momma says I can't touch the alligators."  But after a few minutes she looked at me and asked so sweetly, "Momma, is it okay that I touch the little alligator."

She was so brave as she held it and took it over to show Faith.

Next my girls will be wanted a pet alligator...