Wild Encounters

Our neighbor, Rayna, was in charge of putting on a family event for the company for which she works, and she chose to do this event at the Fort Worth zoo.  She had some extra tickets and was gracious enough to offer them to us, and I’m so happy she did; it was such a cool experience.  We got to be up close and personal with a number of animals, including an owl, an opossum, an alligator, a 10-foot snake (eek!), and a penguin.  They also had face painting, airbrush tattoos, and free tickets to ride the train and carousel.

The picture below is of Noah right as he was looking in the mirror for the first time to see his tiger face.  I’m not sure what he expected to see, but he was so surprised.  He absolutely loved it and had it touched up right before we left the zoo so that he could still have it for his baseball game that we were headed to.  He played pitcher that game, so we joked that it was a good way to intimidate the other team!  He also got a tattoo of race car on his forearm that we’re not sure is ever going to come off… it hasn’t really faded after several baths.  Amelia got a butterfly painted on her face and did such a good job of holding absolutely still.  When we tried to show her the butterfly in the mirror, she kept turning her head to try and see her cheek better; I ended up just taking a picture to show her! 

It was the first time Amelia rode a small train, and she kept saying, “Choo Choo!”  The carousel was definitely her favorite.  She calls horses “cows,” and kept yelling “Cow! Wheeee!”  Rayna was busy with the event, so we had a fun time hanging out with her husband, Jerry, and their son, Mitch.  I’m pretty sure Amelia is in love with Mitch.  She was constantly calling his name to make sure he was close by and wanting to sit in his lap.

Every time Noah would pass the camera, he would strike a different pose.

She feel asleep about a minute after we got in the car!