Senior Week Zoo Trip

As a 4th year medical student we're still called "seniors," and we have "Senior Week Activities" including a dinner/dance, a Brewers game, a golf tournament, and a zoo trip. Today was zoo trip day, complete with free parking and a picnic! What a blast! We were lucky enough to get there before the big crowds, and got to see lots of really neat animals up close. I'll try to let the pictures tell the story.
Our first animals today, the gazelles. Jake was very exited to see them, but he thought they looked more like deer.

Here is the cheetah - told you we were right up close!

We got to witness the mommy and daddy lions cuddling with each other.
The tiger came right up to the glass when we were outside. Jake was super excited (and so were Mom and Dad)!
Next we found the giraffes. Jake was impressed, but he was even more excited about...
Hippos! Last time they were in the water when we visited, so it was exciting to see them in all their hugeness. We also asked them if hippos have Bee-bo's (it's a Sandra Boynton book ;)).
Jake saved his strength and rode in the stroller between the animals. Dad was kind enough to push.
Here are Jake and Mommy outside the elephant's resting area. Boy was he excited to see the elephant (and no, we are not referring to Mommy ;))
Next we moved on to Daddy's favorite - the primate house! Here's a gorilla hanging out inside.
Here are a mommy and baby monkey (bonobos, maybe?). Hard to see in the picture because of the flash, but it was pretty cute.
Here's the orangutan. Daddy says he looks like Chewbacca.
Then it was Daddy's favorites of the favorite: Spider monkeys! One of these guys chucked a pail at the other one, then dive-bombed down the steps, and got up and shook it off. It was crazy!

Next, we traveled onward to one of Jake's favorite places...
The fish and reptile house! Here's Jake getting pretty excited over a big shark!
Then we saw some alligators - ask Jake what they say (the answer is "snap, snap" while he makes a pretend mouth with his hand).
Here's a giant sea turtle.
And a kind of cool shot of Jake (that's his outline) being mesmerized by all the fishies in the tank. There are orange ones and white ones and blue ones, and spotted ones and striped ones.. he loved it!

Well, it's getting late (and blogger takes a long time to upload pictures) so we'll continue the story of the zoo trip tomorrow. Get excited for some animals with trunks and a mode of transportation that goes "Choo choo!"