Miss Mary Mack... and Rites of Passage

Last Friday I took the 3 younger kids to the zoo with my friend, Lori.  Her youngest is Olivia's age, so she gets to be the surrogate aunt when she comes with me on our field trips.  I love it.  Helps me feel not so outnumbered.

I've had a song running through my head lately:

Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack,

All dressed in black, black, black,

With silver buttons, buttons, buttons,

All down her back, back, back.

She asked her mother, mother, mother

For 50 cents, cents, cents,

To see the elephants, elephants, elephants,

Jump the fence, fence, fence.

Obviously, it was time to visit the elephants. (I hadn't seen the baby since it was born last May!)

Apparently we now have 4 elephants at our zoo.  Check out the "do" on this one!

The best thing about our elephant complex?  It's humungous.  Everything is built in such a large scale with these big, fat logs.  It's gorgeous.  There's this ramp that you take up to see inside the building where they go when they are indoors.  Maddox was amazed.

Connor was more interested in walking on the bench.

While we were there, Maddox had his first "statue" experiences at the zoo.  I guess it's got to be done sometime, right?

Kelsey had fun pretending she was falling off all the statues.  I guess she had to see if Lori would fall for it.  Seriously - these pictures were taken 30 minutes apart on two entirely different statues.

She's such a goof, but a cute one!

As we were leaving, Lori treated the kids to a couple of the quarter-rides at the entrance.  She did it mostly for Connor, I think, but Kelsey seems to be having the most fun.

Ride 'em cowgirl!

Maddox had a good time on the other one, too.

Though it looks rather questionable, here.

All in all, it was a win. 

We love our zoo days.