Birthday at the Zoo!

My Mom's birthday was today . . . and it was an absolutely gorgeous day!  We celebrated by heading up to John Ball Zoo in Grand Rapids.  Anna came along too.  We were all pretty excited about that!  A lot of the animals were already gone for the winter but there were still a lot to see.  Aliyah's said her favorite animal was the river otters.  They were pretty fun to watch - Hope was standing right up on the ledge by the glass when one of they swam right up to her.  It scared her and she stepped back, forgetting she was up on the ledge.  She didn't get hurt, thankfully!  Hope said her favorite animal was the monkeys.  They weren't too active but they are always a highlight!  Samuel loved all of the animals but only wanted to spend approximately .2 seconds viewing each animal.  He was hard to keep up with!  If it was up to him, he would have gone through the zoo twice - seeing each animal two times for a total of about 1 minute of viewing time per animal.  Silly boy!  We ended the day with how every zoo day should end - ice cream!  Happy Birthday Mom/Grandma.  WE LOVE YOU!

Feeding the goats at the petting zoo.  The gates were closed so we couldn't go in with the animals, but we could feed them leaves through the fence!! :)

A tunnel!

Watching the river otters swim and play . . . this was before Hope stepped backwards off of the ledge :)

Aliyah with a little monkey of some sort

Aunt Anna and Karys were best buds at the zoo

3/4 of my kids!

Watching the grizzly bear

Some sibling love by the grizzly bear . . . about 2 seconds after this picture was taken they all fell over in a heap and there were at least 2 kids in tears.

Ice cream!!

Hope is my girl that loves chocolate ice cream. The others prefer vanilla.

How's that going for you, Anna?

What is your wing span?

Karys was sleeping in the stroller . . . it's hard to get all 4 of my kids in the same picture!

On Grandma's 57th birthday, we made her squish into the back seat of the van between Hope and Aliyah!  We are that cruel. :)

Playing one of the drums at the zoo

Watching the fish

Samuel was imitating the penguins

Grandma's wing span :)

Happy Birthday Mom!  2/5 of your kids. :)

Watching the monkeys (do nothing) during our lunch break.

Watching an owl.