A day at the zoo

Zoos might be in my top 3 places I love to visit.  If I'm ever dating anyone and he is looking for a special date to take me on, my readers can remember this and let him know I'd like to go to the zoo.  Any zoo.  My cousins Sara and Todd and their daughter Autumn came to Peoria to visit yesterday.  We had excellent weather to be outdoors all day.  We went to the Peoria zoo, to Avanti's (where we had the worst service ever, which is sad because Avanti's is normally a great place to take people), and to Tanner's. 

So, before you look through my millions of pictures, there are a few things to keep in mind.  1.  I just got a new camera and was experimenting.  2.  I took over 100 pictures, so this really is a highlight.  3.  As mentioned above, I love the zoo.  and 4.  I accidentally loaded all my pictures backwards.  I didn't mean to start with the snakes :)

But with the snake pictures, I did discover that my camera takes very good pictures through glass without a flash.  Something I could not do with my old camera.

Everybody look left....

Everybody look right...  We quoted lines from the Lion King a lot as we traversed the zoo.  The spider monkeys are in my top five favorites at the zoo.

The zoo decorates for Halloween and this was my favorite decoration.  Nothing to do with animals, but everything to do with fun childhood memories.

Look at that giraffe tongue!  Did you know that a giraffe's tongue is black so that it doesn't sunburn.  Apparently they spend a good portion of their day eating, and their tongues are like 12 feet long!

The zookeepers fed the giraffes while we were there, so they came really close.  This is zoomed, but not much.  The giraffes are also in my top 5 things to see at the zoo, as you can tell from the numerous pictures I took!

Autumn, taking a break from the sun and heat while we watched the giraffes.

During this picture, the lions were looking off to the left and me, Todd, and Autumn were all saying, "Here kitty, kitty, kitty" to try and get them to look at us.

Pretty lionness.

Very majestic!

Turtle!

There is a new Australian exhibit where the emus, black swans, and wallabe wander around while you walk through.  No cages for these guys.  We couldn't find the wallabe, but the sign said he liked to hide and you have to stay on the path so you can't really go look for him.

The tiger recently had 4 tiger cubs.  Tigers are also in my top five. :)

Autumn checking out some weird looking animal that I can't remember the name.  Maybe the takin.

Awww....I want one!