The Zoo

Ed's favourite animals at the zoo were the birds.

The girls videoed the entire zoo experience. Here they are filming each other instead of anything zoo related. Luckily we have two copies of this plus this still that I took of nothing.

Lucy at the start of the zoo experience before it all turned to custard. There were no more pictures taken by me once we got past the first two exhibits.

Today in celebration of Rosh Hashana I took the girls to the Cape May Zoo. We had heard good things about it but mostly that it was free so we decided to go check it out. I felt oh so guilty about giving the courtesy "I'll pass" wave to the senior citizen they had posted at the gate holding the pail labeled "Donations". It worked and I felt really bad about it but all I had was the two quarters that I had to hold onto for the kids to feed the goats. In the end that counted as a donation but still it just didn't seem like it was enough to help their cause ("your donations provide the food for the animals). My guilt continued as I noticed that Maya's most favourite animal at the zoo-the camel had kind of...small humps. I read on their Camel info board that that means they are having to use the fat supply from the humps. "Ah mum, I thought they would have really tall humps and we could ride on one!" Well, I guess I now know why out of all the animals those are the ones she wanted to see. Maybe I will have to drive back and donate a little more. I am a little sore because I was the acting camel of the journey carrying Ed, cameras, kids stuff, the backpack(that I could no longer carry eddie in because my back was going to snap off) but all in all it was an enlightening day AND I only lost Eddie once. When I was having to read the entire camel info to Maya I told Aida to watch Eddie, soon she returned (without eddie) to say that some people said they would watch him until his mom came to get him. Yeah, Ed was like 70 meters away staring at the parrots. We sold our strollers in NZ and I just can't justify buying a new one when he is nearly 2 but I guess I should have because turns out the free zoo doesn't rent them out and it is a little hard to take 4 kids to the zoo alone. What I did learn other than I can't go again until he is like 4, is explained in the following pictures.

After the zoo we were starving so I made a deal that we could stop and eat at BK in lieu of trying to find the Cape May diamonds of which I have no idea where to look. It seemed fair enough. My girls got their cups and were mad that they didn't have any soda in them. I told them how they can fill up their own. The BK we were at had the buttons not the levers shown here, the girls were pressing the pictures as hard as they could and looking all around the machine for the ice. Who knew it was so complicated? Very cute actually.

At the zoo, you could put a quarter in to get some feed for the goats or ducks or whatever animal was around. I put a quarter in my eager girls' hands only to have them run over put it in the slot and stare at it smiling then that smile turned to a frown. They looked up at me and said "Mum, nothing is happening, we put the money in!" I showed them how you then have to turn the knob. "When will it stop coming out? Can we move our hands now?" I would have taken a picture but Ed was about to be swallowed by a flamingo so you know...