Lions and Tigers and Bears . . .

We went to the San Diego Zoo last week! Beautiful weather and wonderful animals. But geez, were we tired after! And it's extremely difficult to make a 3 hour drive both ways in one day with a 9 month old. Elena Rose was awake for the last hour of each drive, and it was up to me to entertain her and soothe her when she fussed . . . and I was feeling carsick so that part of the trip was not fun. But we saw a lot of beautiful animals while we were there. We realized though, that with a lot of the animals that were farther away Elena Rose much preferred to look at the people walking by her. But with the bigger animals and the ones that moved a lot, like the giraffes (which were one of my favorites; one of her teething toys is called Sophie Giraffe, so now I call all giraffes Sophie), elephants, monkeys, and birds. Our favorite animal by the end of the day was the meerkat. They were so cute! I didn't really know anything about them, but one of them is always on guard to protect the whole group, and it stands there like a statue while the rest are in their holes.
The Sophies

Jorge and Elena Rose; it was hot so we really enjoyed the ice cream cones!

A mama hippo with her baby

The meerkat