lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

while lee was in california (see previous post for that trip and his first time to blog!), i spent a day at the zoo with katy, the garrett kids, the snelgrove girls, and their babysitter, kathryn (probably did not spell her name right but i can't remember). i had never been to the houston zoo so i was pretty pumped about what it had in store. plus, with 8 kids in tow, i knew we were in for an exciting day no matter what the zoo had to offer.as it turns out, we did in fact see lions and tigers and bears. we saw an array of other animals as well, but the biggest surprise of the day was the monsoon rain that poured down on us during lion training time, which was thankfully kind of under a shelter from the rain. i will spare you all photographic evidence of what we looked like after the rain because it was not a pretty sight. the kids quickly recovered, of course, and we moved onto to elephants and the kids' section.

speaking of elephants, katy got all the kids to say "roll tide" when she took this picture. i love it :)

in the kids' section, we found a petting zoo, a playground, a splash pad, and an interactive prairie dog exhibit. the girls and jennings were able to pop in and out of these bubbles while prairie dogs popped in and out of the ground all around them.

we thought we were rain free once we left the zoo, but we were sadly mistaken. the rain rain rain came down down down in rushing, rising rivlets (winnie the pooh, anyone?) all the way back to my apartment. in hopes of entertaining the kids, we headed to joe's crab shack because they normally dance around and get the kids involved. unfortunately no dancing ensued, but the kids, whether from delirium or the re-energizing naps they got during the rain, were very content with endless giggling over anything and everything, coloring, and climbing across the booth and each other.

who had two thumbs and were super excited to finally eat lunch (at 4pm) and be completely dry? kathryn and i did!