Round and Round We Go!

The merry-go-round has always been my favorite ride wherever we are, even at Disneyland. I'm a complete sucker when it comes to the merry-go-round. I let my kids ride it every time. At the OKC Zoo, it's only a buck. Okay, a buck is probably a lot to ride round and round, up and down ... whew, I'm getting a little dizzy here ... but in this day and age, a buck per ride is a steal. That's what the kids got to do at the zoo (because I'm too cheap to pay for the tram or anything else ... although the rock wall looks tempting....).

Here they all are, waiting their turn, quite patiently, and very politely, by the way. From left to right: Rex, Matthew, Nathan, Elisabeth. Did you know that Matthew is actually 6 months younger than Elisabeth? Yep, even though he's like 6 inches taller (at least), and only an inch or two shorter than me. That's fascinating to me.

Here's Matthew, even taller.

Here's Lizzy. Every time I look at her, I think how gorgeous she is!

Nathan is the most fabulous picture poser I've seen in a looooooong time.

Rex likes to pose for pictures, too.
As for Sariah, well, I have another picture with her face in it that's really cute, but this one is really REALLY cute because you can tell how little she is (and this picture conveniently hides how fat my arms really are). Look at Rai-rai's hands compared to the carousel pole. I'm so in love!

Maybe next time, I'll actually ride. Or not.

Zoo Crew

My friend Tiffany and I have gone to the zoo together with our kids since ... well, since forever. We've known each other since before her oldest was born. I can still remember Ben gnawing on one of the decorative knobs on my rocking chair--it was so cute (although NOT when my kids did it). We've had to go less often since the kids got older (ergo, whinier) and Tiffany got a full time job. But this week was spring break (and since our family's spring break plans were axed), we up and decided to head off to the zoo. But not with all of our kids. Just half of them.

We had to have the Tortoise Picture. It's tradition, like this:That's Hannah, Ben, Elisabeth, Matthew, and Caleb in 2001.

Um ... it didn't work so well in 2009, even with half of the kids.It was a little ... uh, squishy. The komodo dragon picture above turned out much better. Here's how it was in 2002:

And speaking of the zoo statues, I said in this post that I would find a picture of Hannah and the gorillas from long, long ago. Here it is:
It's just plain scary how much she's grown and how fast time has gone by. {sniffle, sniffle, sniffle} I once sobbed to Bob when Hannah was like a week old that it wouldn't be very long before she grew up and went to kindergarten and got married. It's not looking so ridiculous these days.

Anyhow, this time around, we went with our friends, Matthew,

and Nathan,
and we had a very grand time.


The kids most looked forward to the herpetarium (eeeewwww, gross!).
However, it didn't take long for ALL of us to be hot and absolutely SICK of the spring break crowds. Everyone having their spring break at the same time in Oklahoma sounds good in theory ... not so much in practice. Was anyone NOT at the zoo? That's how everyone looked at the end of Oklahoma Trails. Maybe we wouldn't have looked quite so worn out if we hadn't just had an adrenaline surge and plunge because we thought we lost Rex. It was very emotional. But we survived. Tune it tomorrow to see more exciting pictures! :)