Zoo & the Beach

Jeremy's parents came down for a visit a couple of weeks ago.  The kids were really excited to see Grammy and Gramps.  They enjoyed just chillin with them in the garage.

 Wednesday, we decided to take them to the Lowry Park Zoo.  It was a beautiful day.  A lot of the animals were out and pretty visible.  We happened to walk past the orangutan exhibit as they were getting a mid day snack.  Isn't this guy cool?

 The zoo keeper was throwing fruits and vegetables at the Orangutans.  This dude had good eye/hand coordination.

 There's big poppy again, with his feet and mouth full.

 Nathan and I went on the super fun kids roller coaster.  He is a great riding partner

 We did a behinds the scenes tour that was new to us.  It was a tram ride into some special exhibits.

Hannah wanted to take pictures on the tram ride.  So, the following photos are courtesy of Hannah

 Did you notice a pattern?  She was able to capture the rear end of each animal. Poor thing, haha!

We had another special treat, the baby hippo was out.  It was only 4 days old!  You can kind of see it in this picture, smooshed between the glass and its momma.

 I've never seen their Florida Panther active.  He was running all over the exhibit today.

 The kids always love to touch the sting rays.  Even Nathan got his fingers down in the water that day.

 They had some special one on one time with one of the zoo keepers.

After the zoo, we headed to Madeira Beach to meet Jeremy for dinner. 

 Silly boy and I took funny photos.

 I really like this beach.  It is huge.  It has sugar sand.  It has a draw bridge.  It has food and shopping.  It has a bathroom.  And it has beautiful sunsets.

 There is almost nothing more pure than a little boy playing in the sand.

 Trying to hold the sun up.

 My absolute favorite picture.  Click on it to make it bigger.  I love that I caught him in mid jump.

 Of course, we had to finish the night off in a typical family style.  Jeremy remembered that he had to take his truck somewhere to have a bed liner put in, so Greg following in my van.  We crammed that van (already full with 7 people, including three sleeping children, with tools, boxes, etc, and even strapped a truck topper and ladder to my van top.  Straight up hillybilly here ya'll.