To the Alaska Zoo! One of our favorite places to go visit in Anchorage, so how could we resist a birthday party??
It's not really a huge zoo, so it's great for short visits when the weather is nice and we have no other plans. But you can see the wide assortment of animals. I think almost all of the animals here are injured and can't survive in the wild or transplants from other zoos. My favorites are the polar bears and they are in the midst of an enclosure upgrade - can't wait to see their finished digs!
The otters were in a particularly playful mood today! They were adding water to their pool and the otters seemed to think it made their home a water park. So much swimming and playing!
These two were wrestling all around the place - totally reminded me of Natalie and Eliza. Though with less teeth...
Thomas and Nonni were both equally excited with the playing otters. Especially when the water got turned off. One of the otters was checking out the water pipe when the water suddenly came back on... Hilarious! Wish I had gotten a photo of that reaction!
Given his bravery at the previous petting zoo experience, I thought we should try it out again. And Thomas walked over and started petting a goat! The goat didn't even seem to notice, but Thomas was pretty proud of himself. I thought it was adorable! :)
Henry already has his own personal zoo animal, so he didn't bother with staying awake at the zoo. This particular giraffe came from Aunt B, so we decided to name him Biraffee (Bee-raff-ee). Henry loves his Biraffee, he's always holding it or trying to eat it.
After seeing the tigers, Thomas was crawling around on the deck like a tiger (I'm assuming) - weird because all the tigers were sleeping. He's been roaring like a tiger at me since Nonni took him to the zoo last week. But I couldn't get him to do it at the zoo! But give him one of my tiger slippers and I get attacked non-stop...
One of the Dall Sheep saw I had a camera with a zoom lens and decided to get in the modeling mood. Ha, he was hiding in the rocks at first then moseyed down to where he would be nicely framed by trees and blue sky. Who says animals aren't vain? ;)
And we finally made it to the party section. They had several bouncers, a live band, face painting, etc. Given the slide incident at the company party, I steered him away from the giant slide to the bounce house that also happened to have a short slide. He was more interested in sliding than bouncing, but couldn't get up the "rungs" by himself. So I got in and assisted him up to slide down.
The next time instead of pushing him up, I showed him where to put his feet and how to pull himself up. The next time he almost made it all by himself.
Couldn't really convince him to slide down correctly though. Eh, whatever...
And then he didn't need my help anymore. He figured out the method pretty quick and went back several times to climb and slide all by himself. I was so proud!
But like a moth to flame, I couldn't keep him away from the giant slide. I thought he *might* be able to climb it himself, but that was a fail. So I ended up having to climb up with him, dodging hundreds of small children who had no patience for the toddler slowing things down - he would not let me help him up the stairs. I grabbed him to ride down with him and he was not happy - he started yelling his typical "my turn! my turn!" - which really just means "I do it my way, right now" in his book. So I tried to get him all psyched up by yelling on the way down. Which my mom thought made for a hysterical photo.
He was only partly swayed...
And I might have had to drag him away from the slide...
Happy 45th Birthday, Alaska Zoo! We love you and hope to spend many, many more visits with you!