Our Visit to Idaho

At the end of May (yeah, almost 2 months ago) we went to Utah for Jason and Rebecca's wedding. Since we were already 2/3 of the way there, we decided to drive up to Idaho after the wedding weekend was over to spend a week with my family. It was so fun to get to visit them, I wish we could get there more then twice a year. We did a ton of fun stuff, but since I have been HORRIBLE at taking pictures lately, I only got some at the Idaho Falls zoo. I'm not going to lie, I was pretty impressed with this little zoo. I mean how great could the Idaho Falls zoo be, right? But honestly, I think they were better at maintaining and themeing their animal enclosures than all the bigger zoos I have been to (with the possible exception of the San Diego Zoo). And it had been raining all day, but we decided to go for it and get head to the zoo anyway. As we pulled up, the clouds parted and the sun came out. As a result, all the animals were SO playful! We had monkeys chasing us across their enclosures and swinging and flipping like crazy. The lions were showing off like crazy, we even had bears playing or fighting each other on their back legs. It was so fun! Easily the most exciting trip to the zoo I have ever experienced.



Here Katelyn my little sister is helping Lucy to not be scared of the toy tiger. It took us about 5 minutes to convince Lucy that it wasn't real, and about as long to get Jack to leave it.

The tiger was one of the more boring animals. He was walking around when we got to his cage, but he was too interested in the traffic just outside his cage. He just climbed a hill and laid down so he could see it better.

But the lion... he was so cool! He was just walking around his enclosure staring us down. In this picture, he was actually staring at the zebras across the path. I think he was hungry.

Lucy had so much fun playing with my sister's little girl Kaylie. They don't get to see each other enough, but they have fun when they do.

This is just a classic Idaho Falls zoo picture. If my parents took pictures of me as a kid, I would have this same picture. But since they didn't (ok, I'll give them this, they probably took the pictures, they just never developed them) I only know that this is classic because of younger siblings. But I do have memories of drinking from the lions mouth, a very scary thing when you are 6 and younger.

Jack decided that he LOVES the zoo as we got to the end. He was fascinated with the birds, and LOVED watching them stretch their wings. He almost wouldn't let me leave the penguins because he loved watching them jump in and out of the water, and I think he thought they walked funny too because he would glare at them with a very concerned look while they walked around. He was really cute, and I loved watching him take it all in.

The last thing we did was feed the ducks and pelicans. We tried to sneak some of our own bread and crackers in for them so we didn't have to buy the zoo food, but the birds would not eat anything but their normal stuff. So we bought several quarters worth of bird pellets and fed away. Lucy loved it, and it was a good way to end the trip.

While we were there my little brother Steven graduated from High School, so it was fun to get to be there for his graduation. It's still so weird to think that he is old enough to be out of school. He's a smart kid, I'm excited to see what he ends up doing. I can't wait to get back to Idaho, which will probably be in October when my little bro David gets home from his mission. I'm already counting down the days!