At the Zoo with a school chum

A sign of things to come at the Oregon Zoo

They've made some changes in policies and memberships at the zoo this year. The membership that we had all of our grandchildren on will only allow us to have 6 of them on now. And starting in January everyone will need to pay $4 to park. Each space will be metered if I understood that message correctly. It's kind of a bummer that the stuff that we enjoyed for years is changing.

 We do love getting to be there

We invited a friend of Wyatt's and his mom to join us for our zoo outing. Marika and Everett  met us at the ticket booth and we entered together.

 I snapped a picture of the kids and Wyatt took this one of the adults. I'm happy that Courtney got to join us as well. She did a lot to keep Garrett occupied. 

We did a lot of posing around on and amongst the statuary.

 We took our time wandering and got to see some pretty cool things. These chimps were getting what sounded like kibble out of this big plastic drum. They had to shake it and maneuver it to get the pieces of snacks to fall out of the holes.

 Looking for Lily

I don't know how old the baby elephant at the zoo is but Courtney has seen her multiple times and everytime I've been there since her birth she's been off exhibit. This time we searched in the back yard and in the indoor building and in the front. No baby :( Courtney was having to take a phone call and stepped back into the building and then saw a door opening and there was Lily and her mom, Rose Tu. Courts called us back in and we stood and watched the keepers bathe and feed these two elephants for probably 15 minutes or more. It was fascinating to see the tricks that Rose Tu can do and how smart that little gal is. She's learning tricks as well. So so cute!

The children's sculpture garden

Africa

 I made each of the kids carry their own lunch on their backs. Gotta get them used to those new backpacks!

Busy busy boys

Garrett walked the entire day. I didn't bring or rent a stroller. Toward the end he was getting pretty cranky and I was carrying his backpack.

A wonderful trip followed by a terrific nap

He fell asleep on the way home and stayed asleep for more than 2 hours. He was bright eyed and happy to see Grampa when Har got home especially since Grampa let him play on his Kindle!