St. Patrick's Day

St. Patrick's Day fell on a Saturday this year and the weather was amazing, so we decided to meet up with our friends, the Weck's, and go to Brookfield Zoo! You can see that Ben is in his full Irish wear (complete with a hat he made in school) and Abbey is wearing as much green as she has in her almost totally pink wardrobe (notice the green on her shirt).

Juju has a green skirt she is wearing and I have my green dress. There was a lot of green at the zoo that day! But here we are looking at the camels (and thinking of Madgie riding one)!

Then we met up with the Wecks and luckily, Ben and Aiden were able to read the maps to tell us where to go next!

Connor and Abbey helped too...

Just a cute pic of Abbey...

Do you recognize these wolves found only at Brookfield Zoo?

Abbey liked posing with pretend animals.

Ben...

Look at this monkey!

Abbey the teacher...

Teaching us all about a healthy diet...

And then about keeping our planet clean...

Here is the parade of kids (Juliette and Gavin both took naps in their respective strollers during the afternoon).

Ben got up close and personal with the leopards.

There's Gavin! They are all checking out the hippo.

We got to see the staff feeding a hungry hungry hippo and it was pretty amazing to watch. Their mouths open so wide - almost 180 degrees! It was just like the game!

It was very neat to see. They weren't particularly good at catching the food though. It would go in and sort of bounce back out before he closed his mouth, but then he would just chomp down and get most of it.

It was a really great day - the kids were all fantastically behaved, especially considering we spent all day there and I am sure they were exhausted by the end, but they held it together surprisingly well. Then we stopped to get some dinner on the way home at Jason's Deli as Paul really wanted a corned beef sandwich. We did make the traditional Corned Beef and Cabbage dinner, but it was a few days later. Oh well, spending all day at the zoo was worth not having enough time to prepare the traditional meal that day! Happy St. Patrick's Day (a few weeks late)!