Nothin' wrong with a trip to a zoo.

At long last, the highly anticipated "trip to the zoo" post has arrived.

Seriously, I love me a zoo, and the San Diego Zoo really is the mother of all zoos. We weren't going to go because the last time any of us kids had been there, we had a bad experience, but as it turns out, there's a reason I love me a zoo. That reason is my dad. My dad LOVES him a zoo and so it was under his advice that we changed our plans last minute and decided to go.

It was a good move.

It was a good day.

What's not to love about one of these little "stick your head in there and let me take your picture!" things?

Nothing. Nothing's not to love.

Are you aware of the fact that there are polar bears at the San Diego Zoo?

Polar Bears, people!

This is not a polar bear.

I kinda wish it was. They're cute when they're small. Or at least this replica of a polar bear is really cute.

Fact: When I was growing up, I loved polar bears.

I'm not sure why I loved them so much, but I thought they were the coolest animals around. I believe I may have even had one of those Zoo Books posters of a polar bear on my wall in my room.

I was really disappointed when it came to my attention that polar bears grow to be gi-freaking-normous and would consume me on the spot if given half a chance.

I also liked seals.

When I was in first grade, we had a special 'money day' when we got to earn fake money and then buy real things with fake money. I lost most of my money somehow and my teacher was really unsympathetic about it. Her name was Mrs. Norris and she was kinda mean to me. She would get mad at me when I needed to go to the bathroom so I would try to hold it and then she'd get mad at me for not going to the bathroom. She would dump my desk out on the floor in front of the whole class when it got messy. In retrospect, she may not have liked me very much.

Anyway, I lost most of my money and so I ended up having to wait until last to be able to pick out what I wanted to buy. Mrs. Norris told me that there wouldn't be anything left when I finally got my turn.

I wanted to buy a stuffed seal.

It was still there.

Mrs. Norris told me that I was "lucky" in a very curt manner.

I bought the stuffed seal with my fake money and then I took it home.

Then I named him Sealy.

That said, look at this picture.

After we took this picture, we went to see the elephants and somewhere along the way, Davie peed through his diaper, so he was mostly naked from the waste down. Then Lizzy peed through her diaper and refused to put on her shoes or wet pants, so she was mostly naked from the waste down. We hopped on the skytram and all clung onto the bar in the middle as though that bar would save us from certain death if our tram suddenly broke free and plummeted hundreds of feet to the ground.

Then we went home.

Then we napped.

Then we went back to the zoo.

The zoo at night is HIGHLY recommended. It was nice out, parking was easy, crowds were way down, it was just good.

Hello koala bear. It's super cool that you can get up close and personal with the koalas, which are NOT bears. Are they? They're marsupials, right? Hello koala marsupial!

We hung out there for a while. Charlie liked them and didn't want to leave. He usually gets what he wants.

We walked right in to see the pandas. The kids LOVED them and took about 17 pictures of them. Can you see it in there? Look closely...

Cool.

After that, we made our way to the reptile house to try to find the komodo dragon for Jane. She was desperate to see it. I don't think we ever found it, but we did find a big huge lizard that in many ways resembled a komodo dragon. We told Jane that it was one. We lied to our child. It isn't the first time and it won't be the last.

And with that weighing heavily on our conscience-s, we went home again.

The zoo = a good time.