Zen Gorilla

Sometimes Ben and I think that our kids go to the zoo just to get on the statues and get their pictures taken. Every time we see the obligatory zoo statue of an animal - big or small - the girls run up to it and fight over who gets to sit on the head for the picture. Are my kids insane, or is this the normal fare?

Despite our general annoyance at this habit, we indulge them with relatively good humor. So when we went to the zoo this past Friday after Thanksgiving, we were able to derive great enjoyment from Olivia's gorilla statue escapade.

Since there are two gorilla statues side by side, Kelsey climbed on the smaller one and Olivia was bound and determined to sit on the big one.

Despite the fact that actually getting on the statue proved rather difficult, she perservered.

She was able to get this far on her own, then finally asked for help the rest of the way. And if you look carefully at the right-hand side of the picture you can see the temper-tantrum that Kelsey is throwing because we won't let her climb on the big one, too.

And here it is zoomed in. Are we five or two?

But getting back to Olivia. She finally (with mom's help) got onto the giant gorilla's back.

In the meantime, Ben got Kelsey happily situated on the smaller gorilla.

And what was Olivia doing while we were taking Kelsey's photo? Meditating, apparently.

And just to give you an idea of just how many of these pictures Ben and I have to sit through in a single trip, here's all the other statues they got their pictures taken on:

Rabbit (in the bright sun)

Tortoise

Connor's first: the Tiger

Tiger again (with his sisters, though something other than the camera caught Kelsey's eye...)

Lion family
Rhino (why it's the smallest one there is beyond me!)

And last but not least, a picture to prove that Ben and I were actually there with them. What do you think, Noni? Is it time to throw this hat away, too? He insists it's finally broken in and I'm not allowed to touch it!