Last Friday we took Oliver on his first Hogle Zoo outing. I haven't been to the zoo in over 10 years and Enoc has never been to the Hogle Zoo. So it was a lot of fun for all of us! Oliver especially loved all the monkeys and parrots. Enoc and I loved the giraffes and found the bears and penguins depressing (Dang you Happy Feet!). There were these two adorable Titi monkeys that stole my heart, though. We found them snuggling in the tippy top tree branch. The male had his arm draped lovingly over the female. Their heads were pressed intimately together. And their tails were interwined as if they were holding hands. By far the sweetest thing we saw that day! The little plaque beside them informed us that Titi monkeys mate for life and are extremely loyal. I guess they are one of the few breeds that live together in individual family units and the babies only leave home when they find a mate of their own. I wanted to steal them and take them home with me! Oh, and I also wanted to steal those cute little flaming orange monkeys that are about the size of my fist! Little balls of fire. They kept running down and banging on the glass, placing their palms against our palms, trying to chew through the glass, and "smiling" (or maybe snarling? LOL) at us!

It was raining when we first got to the Zoo and we were questioning our decision. But we bought little ponchos from the gift shop and spent some indoor time with the monkeys. After about an hour or so the rain cleared, but it remained overcast. It ended up being the perfect weather as it was just cool enough that we didn't sweat to death climbing all of those hills. I can't imagine having to do that with the sun beating down my neck! I'm too out of shape!

Right before we left I took Oliver for his first ride on a carosel. He absolutely loved it! We rode on the lion as cats in general are definitely his favorite animal (just ask Kika and Lindsey's cat, Penelope!). He had a great big, poop-eating grin on his face while we were waiting for the ride to start, which instantly changed to overwhelmed wonderment once it did! He was not too happy about the riding coming to an end. He kept grabbing my hand and trying to pull me back over to the carosel for a second go!

So, basically, we had an awesome day at the Zoo! Here are a sample of the billions of pictures Enoc took!