Zoo Day before School Day!

Because the weather was so great yesterday, and it was the last day of the Christmas break, we went to the zoo.  Nathan's leg was bothering him too much to go, and Daniel chose to stay home.  (He was probably hoping to watch Netflix, but I didn't let him.)

It's kind of nice to live in an area that the zoo is open year round.  Most of the year, walking around outside in Florida doesn't really appeal to me.  But yesterday was really nice!

The zoo has an area for feeding birds.  The seed sticks are $1 each (unless you have a coupon for free sticks, like we did).

There are also some lorikeets that drink nectar from a little cup, but I was busy feeding birds instead of photographing them.

The zoo has an interesting and impressive art display on right now (through May, I think) of sculptures made from trash collected along beaches.  These pictures don't do the artwork much justice, but I hope you get the idea.  The colors of each piece come from the actual trash; nothing has been colored to fit the sculpture.

Wow, we went to the beach AND the zoo!  

We walked around and saw several animals.  The zebras were easy to see, but the giraffes were in hiding.  The meerkats were busy and fun to watch.  We skipped the monkeys, but did see the camels and ostriches close up on the train ride (that we also had a coupon for).

Joseph and Sarah had made plans to smash a penny and brought their quarters in anticipation.  Then Rebekah thought she'd like one, too.  Luckily, I had the right change on me.  (And now that I think about it, she owes me money!) Leah decided it wasn't worth 50 cents to smash a penny.

Beautifully smashed pennies.

I caught a glimpse of this flower blooming from a big, tropical plant outside of the zoo.  I don't think blooms are common and it was worth a picture.  Beautiful!

We traditionally stop at the Wendy's outside the zoo for frostys on our our way home to help ease the sweating from being outside in the heat.  We didn't have a drop of sweat among us yesterday, but the kids pretended they were dying so that I would stop.  It doesn't really take that much drama to talk me into a frosty, but I let them go on a bit.  The half hour ride home is pretty nice with a frosty in one hand!