Elephant Man

Sunday, in honor of Mike's birthday, we went to the zoo. It was fun. Except that Marshy wouldn't let us put his jacket on. He fought us so hard that we decided we wanted to keep our stomachs and shins and let him have his way. We discovered that we are bigger wusses than he is! We were so cold that we ran into the monkey house, where we spent a lot of time because the monkey came right up to the window! (below)

He was so cute, and followed us across the room. When we turned to look at him, he'd act all shy and hid in the other corner, and then slowly creep back over when we weren't looking. It was funny.

After the monkeys, we went to the elephants. Big mistake. We should have saved it for last! Marsh just loves the elephants, and shouted "Phant! Phant!" the whole time. Then, when we got too cold to stand there watching them eat, we turned to go into the ape house. Marsh got so mad. He cried and cried for the "phants". He wanted nothing to do with the apes. So we went back outside into the cold to see the elephants again.

Then we decided to go to the other monkey house. Again, Marsh cried and cried, and wanted nothing to do with the Mandrill and the Lemurs. We thought maybe the bears would cheer him up, so we walked over in their direction, being quite far away from the elephants at this point. He didn't like the bears. We ran down to the giraffes, knowing they would be inside, and it would be warm and hoping he would like the giraffes.

Unfortunately, they have a large sign posted on the door saying "Please no screaming or loud noises". Well, that counted us out. So we ran up to the Asian Highlands to look at the cats. Marsh didn't want to look at the cats. He wanted the "phants" and was still yelling for us to go back. "PHANT! PHANT! PHANT!" People were looking at us strangely. Probably because sometimes phant sounds not quite right.

We went into the reptile house to get warm. Marsh hated it. We did get to see the porcupines trying to get it on. That was quite comical. Then, they realized the Meerkats, who shared their pen, were asleep and went over to wake them up. We hurried through the reptile house and rushed back over to the elephants one last time before we left the zoo.

Marsh was so happy! He sat there in awe, goosebumps and all, watching the elephants eat their hay. He was so sad when we went to the car, but luckily he has a stuffed elephant, and it was waiting for him.

Marsh had Goodnight Moon in the car, and there is an elephant in the pictures, and he can point it out to you and tell you what it is and what noise it makes. He did this most of the way to my parents' house, where we were eating lunch. He is my sweet little "Elephant Man". :)