Z-O-O

What gorgeous weather this weekend! Perfect temps and sunny skies. I loved feeling the warm sun on my face after such a cold winter here in the southeast. But beautiful weather brings a heavy dose of guilt for me. Guilt that I NEED to be outside soaking up all that gorgeousness. And I'm so not an outside kinda person. And I really want to be the outdoorsy type. But I just can't hack it. So where does the indoorsy geek go when she needs to ease her must-be-outdoors guilt. The zoo!!!! It's been at least six months I've posted zoo pictures. I know you've missed them.


Ready for some serious zooing.

We got there right after the zoo opened. There was absolutely no crowd. And there were hardly any animals out. Whoops.

The meerkats were out. I asked Luke to sit on this ledge for a photo op. Here he's informing me he wants to go see the fish and eat lunch (at 10:00 a.m.). He has no clue there is a meerkat beside him (obviously behind glass).

And now he sees him (or her. I have no clue.) After this close encounter he declared he does not like meerkats. But he has been so amused by this photo that perhaps he'll agree to see the meerkats again.

We went to see the fish. He viewed every display in record time, assuring us he could see the animal on display, even when it was really well hidden, and that "it's cool". I think he still had lunch on the brain. But it was fun.

Since it was now about 10:20, we had to wait a bit on lunch. Luke asked to go to the playground, but was very worried he'd get sprayed with water on the way in. I was fairly certain the water sprayer would not be going since it was about 60 degrees. I was right.

At the playground we discovered this mega slide.

I was pretty impressed that Luke loved this slide. And he was pretty impressed with himself too.

The static was good for the hair.

Most of his trips, this is how he came down the slide. Daddy is a good sport.

And then some serious rope climbing. I'd forgotten how HUGE those nets are. As seen above, Luke needed a little assistance. Yeah Daddy again. Mommy would need more than a little assistance.

What is Mommy good for on the playground? Some serious swinging.

Luke posed himself like this in the bee hive type apparatus and sang some religious songs. I'm guessing he's mimicking a Cedarmont Kids video he watched all the time about 2 years ago. Goodness knows he wouldn't forget it.

After a lot of playtime we headed to the cafe for the long awaited lunch. We ran into a father and son we know from the autism community. Luke asked to eat with them and they kindly obliged. Luke locked in on this little guy, whose a couple of years older than Luke, and wanted to do everything he did. He can be a bit obsessive about this. His Dad commented on how social Luke is. But Luke was chatty and pleasant throughout lunch.

Our friends were heading to the playground and Luke asked to go too. So back to the playground we went. Luke's buddy is truly the most coordinated little guy I've ever seen. I've seen him walk on the back of wingback chairs as if he were just walking across the floor. Luke desperately wanted to do everything his friend was doing, but needed much assistance and he was so much slower. And again I'm reminded how kids are the spectrum are all so different, just like typical kids I guess.

On our way out we stopped by Luke's favorite animal. The blue birds were some of the many animals not out when we arrived. Big excitement they were now on display in all their tropical glory.

Yeah for sunshine. Yeah for the zoo.