Monkeyin' Around

I started doing preschool with Eli this week. We've worked on the letter A (big A and little A) and the numbers 0 and 1. We will work on colors also tomorrow. Our theme was schooltime this week so we've read a lot of books abut school. We decided to take a field trip today to the zoo. The gorilla was taking a nap right by the window. Of course, as you can see, he decided to sleep with his hind end up against the glass. Katie and Eli both enjoyed seeing him. I think Katie just enjoyed being on the floor. Of course, as usual, we had to visit the bears first. Eli loves those bears. Eli decided to make a friend of the monkey statue. He even kissed it. It was adorable. Back to the gorilla--with it being so close to the window and being so still, we were able to see the details in his hands. It was amazing how human-like their fingers are. They even have fingernails and toenails like us. Their knuckles even are creased like ours too. I was amazed.
Another neat thing was the giraffe. It was right up to the viewing area. A zookeeper came up while we were there and fed it. It has an enormous tongue. She said that it was 18 inches long. WOW! Eli enjoyed seeing it up close and I think Katie enjoyed staring at it too.
When we went into the farm area, Eli actually let me take a picture of him "milking" the cow. Even though it was a fake cow, he acted so shy and scared. I wonder what he would do milking a real cow?
Well it was very hot at the zoo, so we hurried through. Another interesting tidbit was that the alligator was in the water and not on the island. He was pretty scary looking seeing him right up at the fence in the water.
After we left the zoo, we were able to go and meet Jamie and take him to lunch. It was a very enjoyable day. The best part about the zoo today was that there was no crowd. Since school has started there were no big groups there. What a great day!