Lions and Tigers and Bears

First that everyone for their thoughts and wishes as I recover from gallbladder surgery. The first few days were not fun, but I am totally on the mend now, only occasionally getting sore. But I am still not allowed to pick up Lilly for another three weeks and I think that more than anything may kill me.

So anyway last week before the whole getting stabbed in the gut four times, Jeff and I decided to take Lilly on her first trip of the summer to Columbus Zoo. Now that may sound far away cause it's in another state and stuff, but it's actually only about 2 hours and totally worth it. Jack Hanna took over the zoo a while ago and has done some amazing stuff with it and it is the closest zoo to us. We took Lilly twice last year when she was 4 and 5 months old. She seemed to enjoy it, but we knew that she would love it this year.

Our first stop was the petting zoo, which was funny because while Lilly loves to pet and love on our animals, she was not so sure about the goats. She liked them behind the fence,



but was not so sure when they were right there.



Jeff and I watched her closely because she tends to get grabby with animals, meaning she will grab a handful of fur and laugh and while our animals will let her, I was not sure how the goats would react, of course we had to get her close enough to the goats for anything to happen and Miss Lilly was not so sure about that.





but soon she decided to venture closer, which is when she dropped her paci in some unidentifable goat liquid, then she picked it up and tried to put it back in her mouth. I swear you have never seen two people move so fast.

Finally after skipping the pony rides (cause well she is only 16 months old and I think a bit young for pony's)we stood in line for about 20 minutes to see the new baby elephant. The line snaked around the outside enclosures of the other elephants and we had a good time looking at the elephants who were not all fancy and inside because they had a baby. Lilly was having fun riding on her daddy's shoulders, but then got a bit cranky.



I figured she was thirsty so set her down for a sec to grab her sippy. She took a long drink and then an elephant meandered over our way. She points and babbled something in baby and held up her sippy like she was offering Mr. Elephant a drink. Everyone thought it was very cute, so thinking she could impress the crowd further Lilly tried to throw the sippy into the enclosure. Fortunately being a small child the thing bounced off of the fence, unfortunately it then rolled under the fence and fell into that big precipice that separates us from the dangerous animals that could go rouge at any time. She was not so cute to the rest of the crowd anymore (well of course she was, but they were all trying very hard not to laugh because you should not encourage that type of behavior). Finally we got to the baby elephant who was very cute.



We then headed to the aquarium because Lilly loves to yell fish whenever she sees one. She was in love with the huge tank filled with all kinds of colorful sea life



and was very cranky when we had to leave, but it was time for lunch. After lunch we killed some time on a very nice playground that actually had a separate areas for the wee ones. Lilly figured out how to slide down and slide and also how much fun those tunnel things could be.



We had a great time and will be heading back as soon as I am healed up and can actually lift her again. Finally I will leave you with one of my favorite shots of the day. technically the thing is so not perfect, but there is something about it that I really like.