We went to the Animal Fair; the Birds and the Beasts were there

On April 30, Mark had a birthday. Here he is surrounded by his adoring children, who scrimped and saved for months to give him the water pitcher next to Matthew. The first one shattered when someone (Katrina) wanting COLD WATER took it out of the fridge. That's okay, Treen Bean. We won't cry over it.


In honor of the bunnies we saw that day, we had carrot cake for dessert. As the candles show, he turned five. Who wants to bet he's the biggest kid in his Kindergarten class next fall?



He had the day off, so we went to the Fort Worth Zoo. I've been to the San Diego Zoo, the Hogle Zoo (SLC), Dallas Zoo, St. Louis Zoo, the National Zoo (DC), Bronx Zoo, Central Park Zoo, Van Saun (teensy zoo in NJ) and probably other zoos that I can't remember, but I think the Fort Worth one is my very favorite. Why? Because things are close enough together that you don't have to walk all over creation, and yet there's enough space for the animals to have a nice habitat and be somewhat interactive with the folks who are visiting.

Here we are sitting on a very interactive animal, the Komodo Dragon.

The only sad part was going through the birds of prey section, where the birds were getting their lunch... perfectly white little bunny rabbits. We walked out of there pretty briskly, as Felicity has a special love for bunnies and seeing that would sway even a cold hearted non-animal person.

Next is The Birthday Boy with 3 of his children and some pink flamingoes. I think they actually color these guys pink because the birds in the wild turn pink from their shrimp diet. No kidding!



And the best part of the zoo is, when you get to the end and you're totally wiped out, there's a great train ride to take you all the way home. Or at least back to the front of the zoo, so you just walk through the gate and hike to your car. I must be a nice mom because I picked the most unflattering picture of myself to show everybody our fun train ride next to a TX longhorn.


And a good time was had by all.