Grandma and Papa at the zoo

This may be the longest stretch I've gone without blogging since Silas was a wee baby. Well, I needed the break apparently. To begin the game of catch-up, here are a few pictures from the zoo, which we visited while Grandma and Papa were in town.

Grandma bought Silas a pair of sun glasses, so he could be "just the same as everyone else" (his words, not mine, the little conformist):
The zoo has a great play area, complete with a cool slide. We could have spent all day right in that area and I think he would have been content.
The zoo's awesome view of Mt. Rainier:
One of my favorite things about this zoo is it's Red Wolf program. Red Wolves were driven to the point of extinction over the past several hundred years and only existed in captivity by 1980. This zoo's breeding program helped save the species. They are now on the way to recovery and have been reintroduced to the wild. We got to see several while we were there(a rare treat as they are not active during the day and like to keep their distance). There are less than 300 red wolves alive today, but at least their numbers are going up rather than down.

I've got some pictures to share from Silas' school field trip, and I promise not to go another month before posting them :)

More from the zoo

The day we spent at the zoo really was lovely.
You could not tear that little boy away from that drum! We really could have spent all day right there and he would have been perfectly happy.

He did, however, really like the bears as well. Funny story time: Drew has let Silas watch a short video of Choying Dolma, a Tibetan nun, chanting. One day he brought his brown bear (looks like Eric Carle's brown bear) to Drew and announced that she was Choying Dolma. That has been her name ever since. When we got to the bear exibit, I said, "Look Silas, what's that?" He saw the bear and shouted "That's Choying Dolma!" Here she (actually, it's a he) is:

So many!

I've got a bunch of pictures to post from my parents' visit. There's a lot to sort through, so I'll probably just post a few every day or two. Here's a couple taken last Friday at the zoo, to get us started. More soon...

Woodland Park Zoo

Last Sunday, we ventured to the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle with our friends M & D and their little boy L. The boys are less than two months apart in age and they have such a good time together.

I've posted before about the mixed feelings I have about zoos. At least in the picture below, you can see that the amusement goes both ways...

Silas said "hi." At one point he tripped and fell of the ledge. He was fine but she (or he?) looked over with such concern.


Ready to jump!
I tried to get a picture of Silas wearing his giraffe sweater in front of a giraffe. It didn't quite happen.
The giraffes were in a barn due to cold weather. Poor giraffes. I hope it gets warm soon!

Silas missed the flamingos...

But woke up in time to go.
We spent all day there and still only saw 80% of the place. It's HUGE!

The boys were so cute, holding hands and conversing (or constantly repeating each other) in the van on the way back to the ferry.
What a nice day. We hope those two spend many more days together!

Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium

Our family, just about to begin our first adventure together into the "wilds" of the zoo. Mt. Rainier is between our heads.

Yesterday, we took Silas to the zoo for the first time. There are two zoos near us. We chose to go to the Tacoma zoo because it's smaller and therefore seemed a bit more manageable. Uncle Patrick joined us. Silas liked watching the penguins.
He also enjoyed the Beluga Whales.
And the walruses were OK from above, but he got a bit scared when we encountered them up close in the underwater viewing area. It was the only time he got a bit freaked out. Even the big polar bear didn't faze him.
Out of everything we saw, Si's favorites seemed to be all of the fish. He spent a long time looking at them, completely absorbed.
Silas walked most of the time, and was occasionally carried by one of his "giants." But after 4 hours (and only a half hour nap on the way to the zoo), he was ready for mom to strap him onto her back and chill out. I really don't want to sound braggy, but man, that kid did really well. No meltdowns, despite all of the stimulation.
OK, so here's were I admit that I have mixed feelings about zoos. Please feel free to skip this paragraph if you don't feel like having a soapbox moment. This zoo educates a lot and the animals are treated very well. They are all well cared for. It's a good zoo. And Silas loved it. And I loved seeing him love it. I could almost forget my qualms about the zoo... but then, there's the elephants. Two elephants to be exact. And they don't belong there. Clearly. Elephants thrive in large family groups on large tracts of land. Two elephants are probably all the zoo can afford; after all, they eat an enormous amount and need space. But they simply need more than what the zoo can give to them and it kind of breaks my heart because I think the only reason zoos always have elephants is because people want to see them so badly. Elephants bring people and people bring money. It is a conundrum, and I don't want to make zoos like this one out to be the bad guys because I can think of many many things that are worse. But sometimes I wonder what's truly more important to a zoo: the animals, or the profit. In the interest of full disclosure, we'll probably continue to take Silas to the zoo every now and then, but I will probably feel a bit guilty every time.