A Trip to the Oakland Zoo

While Pammie was here, we got a chance to go to the Oakland Zoo. There was a group of my friends going for our little field trips, so we decided it would be a fun thing to do with Pammie. Boy, oh boy, it was HOT. Oakland is not supposed to be this hot. We saw some not-so-pink pink flamingos.

 And some Sun Bears, who, as it turns out, don't really like the sun all that much.

 When we went to go see the otters, it was really funny. Ethan said, "Hi, Otters" when we walked up to the wall to see the otters, and these otters raced over to greet us. They must have been expecting us!

 They have several super huge turtles that were all resting in the shade.

 Ethan thought this thing was pretty cool and asked for a picture.

 Can you believe this turtle is just chillin' on the back of an alligator?

 Here we found some of our friends, enjoying the same crazy turtle/alligator spectacle.

 Next, we headed down to the petting area and the boy had a lot of fun brushing all the animals. They also had an excellent set of misters, so even though it wasn't all that pleasant smelling with the goats, I was more than happy to hang out.

 I can't see a warthog and not have tunes from the Lion King running through my head.

 Ethan is getting a much closer look at something.

 Here's more of our little crew.

 I think it would be funny to see this number of children running around amidst all the strollers.

 We took a lot of rest breaks in the shade. There are a lot of hills in Oakland, and the zoo is no exception! We definitely got our workout for the day.

 This was as many kids as we could sandwich on the bench.

 This was our "family shot." We had about 7 attempts, and Ethan is jumping up and down in every one.

 Pammie and I took the train ride around a small portion of the zoo with the boys. It was really all Ethan wanted to do since we got there.

 I love this shot of the boys.

 So, funny story, directly after coming through this tunnel, there is a fake snake on the side (they had little fake animals posed along the route of the train). My mom, who is deathly afraid of snakes, was sitting on the same side as said snake and nearly had a heart attack as we came out of the tunnel. I was so bummed I didn't capture her reaction on camera. It was priceless.

 On the extremely short train ride we pretty much just saw kangaroos and Emus. As cool as they are, I don't think it was worth the $15 to see them. Although maybe seeing Pammie pee her pants from the snake scare was worth it (okay, not actually peeing her pants).