Fresno Zoo

It's been crazy around here over the last month or so and I have lots of pictures/blogging to catch up on. I was putting it off until after our vacation to San Fran, but then our computer was out of commission after which, things got a little crazy again. Since my mother is suffering from withdrawals from seeing recent pics of the grand kids, I figured I should at least try and post a few things today while the kids were napping.

A few weeks ago, before we headed to San Francisco, I thought it would be a great idea to take the family to the zoo so I could actually try to use that camera Chris got me a few months back. I feel so bad that he put all that effort and money into getting it for me, and I have barely touched it. With the morning sickness, I hardly felt inspired to take pics of anything and when I did, I preferred my Canon 'point and shoot' camera, because, well, it's dummy proof! I wanted to take the nice camera to San Fran to catch the sights with it, but I wanted to feel a little more comfortable using it first. The ironic part here is that Chris started reading the manual as well, and since he learns much quicker than I do, esp when 'self-teaching', he's formed a new interest in photography as well. The difference is that his photos have absolutely improved, mine are just the same, but taken with a nicer camera :)

Ordinarily I wouldn't bore you with too many pics of just animals from the zoo, but since the task that day was to take some cool pics, and we actually succeeded in that to some degree, I thought I'd share some of our favorites:

Galapagos Tortoise

Prairie Dog

Jonathan enjoying a snack (Apple Jacks have gotten to be one of his favorite lately).

Me and the kids walking to the bird show. I was about 21 weeks along in this picture.

Jonathan's signature look -- over the sunglasses. He wears them ALL the time, even for his nap! I'm glad he's taken to his sun hat this year. He wanted nothing to do with it last summer, but with his fair skin, the more protection, the better!

Watching the bird show

Chris was selected once again to be the helper and get this awesome photo op of the owl flying straight towards him.

Chris and the kids

A gibbon...I think

Flamingo

Chris and Clara feeding the giraffe

Chris and Jonathan feeding the giraffe

I know the view's a little obstructed here, but if you click on this pic to enlarge it, you'll see that Jonathan would stick his tongue out like the giraffe each time he fed him another leaf. It was adorable, but this was the only time I managed to catch it with the camera.

Clara's favorite again this year...the Stingray Bay!

Patiently waiting for a stingray to come along

Clara and Jonathan

Stingray

Kangaroos

The elephants were my favorite animals to take pics of. I think I took about 30 pics of them alone. I have one other really cool one that wouldn't upload. If I can figure out why, I'll post it separately later. I love how the elephants always look like they're smiling!

Too Cute!

Chris and the kids in the rain forest

A Macaw in the rain forest

Looking down at me from the bridge

This was the end of the day. He was tired and hungry, but it was a great day at the zoo as always.

I hope you enjoyed the pics, but before you start to think I'm getting good at this photography thing, the camera was on 'auto' the whole day -- I was still just pointing and shooting :)