Lions and Tigers and Bears

Speaking of wild places . . . Mommy had to make a quick trip to San Francisco this past week and while she was there, she wandered upon this street sign. Pretty cool huh!And more wild things . . . . I started "planting" dinosaur gnomes in our flower garden. Our real gnomes didn't much like them, so I keep them apart and put the dinos away when I'm done playing. On Friday, after mommy got back in town, we took the day off and went to the zoo with our friends Jeanette, Emmalyn, and Brooklyn. Aren't they cute! They are 13 months old now and super hard to tell apart.

We always start every trip to the zoo with a stop at the "Lion's mouth". Sam wasn't so sure about sticking his head in with all those sharp teeth staring at him. We got to see lots of fun animals, including the crocodiles in the bottom right picture. We thought that the one sunning himself out on the side of the pond was a statue . . . he never, ever moved.One of the highlights of this visit to the zoo was the baby elephant. Oh my, is she adorable or what!As long as this elephant stays quiet, we like him. When he makes noises (out of nowhere) we don't like him very much!Another favorite animal was the giraffes. This one was sure hungry . . . and tall too! And then there are the animal statues that we love to take our pictures with every year so that we can look back and see how much we grow each year. Here we are with the tigers.

And of course, the gorilla.
Can you believe that Sam is almost as big as a juvenile gorilla?More pictures of the elephants, and a leopard that was looking at us intently.

The play area at the zoo is excellent. Here is Sam "talking to an alligator about . . . " something or other.
And the tortoises were one of my favorites. Do you think I'd make a good tortoise?And you'd better believe that if there's a train within a 3 mile radius of any place we are, we have to ride it. We also rode the carousel - for some reason we don't want to ride the animals though. Maybe next time.And this weekend, we got haircuts. Even Sam wanted his spiky for church today. Sam Alert: Howdy everyone - do you know what the best part of summer is? Corn-on-the-cob! I can eat it with no hands - face first! The second best part of summer is spending some quality time outdoors. Can it be summer all year long? I sure hope so! Sam out.